Youtubing

Pimp My Model with X-ACTO

HAHAH

FOA's Yokohama Ferry Terminal Sermon

Awesome

efterklang

Cell Phone Tower May be Built Inside Cross

elevator at ICA

4th model light tabel pics

there were lots of irish people

good start to weekend!

i decided at the last minute (11.00am friday during drawing) to go to boston for the night to see my parents, who were at ASHA (american speech and hearing assoc). i took the bus up for port authority, and they met me at south station - where i immediately ran into a girl i studied abroad with in copenhagen. weird! we ate dinner at "elephant walk," a cambodian-french (and also gluten free) restauraunt. delicious.

unfortunately, i jumped on the bus in my disgusting still unwashed since the review clothes and only a pair of thermal underwear (why!?!?!), not realizing i was getting to boston just in time for all the celebratory honors cocktail parties. oooh, boy! hello thousands of people to make a good impression to! haha, and i was so out of it. you know it's bad when you find yourself in a ten minute conversation with the guy they hired to dress up as paul revere for people who want pictures with a legend at the "texas" party. it was surreal! as evidenced below.



my mom and dad were staying at this really nice new westin, so they had this great room high up with a wall of windows and a great view. the best part was the beds. oh man, those beds are great. so many pillows. so high off the ground. great sheets. ahhh that bed. i couldn't stop getting up to look out that wall of glass though. somehow glass like that makes the scene outside so much better. it frames it, i guess. but equally across the whole plane.



then this morning i got to go down to the convention and see my mom's new book's publisher's stand! cooool! here's my dad looking happy about it. i guess it's been reaaally well recieved and sold out, but my mom would never admit to it wholly - so everyone else says so! oh man i am so happy for her. i guess the publishers are really happy cuz theyve had tons of orders from universities.




so then we had some seafood, i had looobbssttteeeer WOOO! and went to the new diller+scofidio+renfro building right next door, the institute for contemporary art. wowwww. i was really pretty impressed with in, especially with the structural clarity of it, in terms of tectonics - the large horizontal ribbon cutting through (i.e. the shape on the side of the block) the whole volume and these little snippets cut off and in. i'm not sure about how the decided to site the whole thing, it seems like it was just kind of plopped down there but really i only saw about 15 seconds of its surroundings so who am i to comment. i really just like diller+scofidio.

periodic surface shoe

can you even see this is a shoe? it's two sections of a hiking boot, modeled in rhino, and then run through a minimal periodic surface. WTF?

countdown to 3/4 term review

1.15am

3.30 am

this week is gearing up to be a COMPLETE SHITSHOW. okay. hear me out here.
i had to spend the entire day yesterday writing a goddamn history paper. i was up until 6am (i had to be at school at 9am). i've got a review with jeffrey in 20 minutes, our LAST before wednesday, which is 3/4th term reviews. and BTW, what the fuck is a three quarters review? how is that even helpful? why not just call every day the 5/17th semester review and be done with it. anyways, i have to have a lasercut model, scale sections, plans, and perspectives in rhino and maya to pin up for wednesday, which means i have to plot by tuesday afternoon. TOMORROW AFTERNOON! i haven't even nailed down then final rhino model. also, our crazy ass triply surface drawing is due on friday, which is supposed to be our most "involved" and "sophisticated."
okay, so all that sucks, blah blah blah.. but then today at work, i found out we have a structures EXAM on thursday that he just SPRUNG on us. THE DAY AFTER (or in some studio's cases, of) our 3/4th term reviews. REALLY??? REALLY???? a fucking structures exam on ALL of the physics and calculus that weve had since the second week in september? OH NO PROBLEM! it's like, remember when you assigned us a simple HOMEWORK assignment the day before midterms? EVERYONE in the class got a check minus!even the engineers! iefv;oaherv;aeworg[0rqOAWEHIGOWRHG'[R9GALIWHEGAWER
plus: the review session is WEDNESDAY NIGHT AT 8PM! our 6 hour review is going to go at least until 7pm. and that night will be all night. WTFFFFFF



10 MIN LATER:
good review with jeffrey, but IVE GOT SOOO MUUUCH WOOORRKWAEOIJFAWIEJGFAWE

up to the sky

so jiddy and some of her friends and i saw mum tonight! wowwwww! it was so cool! i've been so into mum since freshman yr and it was wonderful to see them in concert. god they are an adorable bunch. they all look so nice. and icelandic. and funny. the show was in a church on 60th and columbus, amaaazing venue for the music. if you want to get an idea of what they played, listen to "moon pulls" from the newest album. IT'S SO GOOD! imagine that in a huge dark church. it was kinda spooky, beautiful and great. apparently the icelandic ambassador was in the crowd. it was painfully cute everytime the band spoke: "eh...we playd a song about a boat, and then we play song about water, and now we'll play a song.. well it's about something so silly i don't know what to say."



and then at the end, their guitarist, who had been kind of lurking in the back of the stage, came forward towards the very front and just kind of stood there. and then one of his bandmates was like "i think robert thinks we are being far too serious and wants to tell a joke" and then he just stood there, and after about 10 seconds lifted up his ankle with one hand and proceeded to "jump" through it.. you know, like jumprope with your arm and leg? TWICE. and then just silently walked back. HAHAHA.

the vocalists for mum have the prettiest voices i've ever heard, and the most powerful. the super blonde boy cut girl was like stunningly amazing. i could listen to her sing all day. enough to give you shivers. also the guy.

our site for studio

in a crowd of homesick full grown children

well, i guess i finally understand the meaning of the phrase "fate came knocking." i woke up this afternoon, got dressed, ate some cereal and stuff, and went to studio. it's just ashley and i in our row today for whatever reason, so it works out well for us. and everything is just good in that sense . so we sat around and didn't do work and took smoking breaks (well i didn't smoke). then we went to ollie's for dinner which was nice. got some candy and went back to studio. tried to do some structures, failed, and gave up. so i was sitting at my desk, and i looked up as someone walked by - it was this kid that i studied with in copenhagen, all weighed down by bags. i guess it was one of those double take moments, where the context (arch school) is right, but the chronology is off. so he's on a grad school tour, UVA, MIT, columbia, etc.etc. and just stopped by studio before the open house. etc.etc.

this is all not that Big of a Deal, this isn't someone i was close to in CPH, but something about it really shocked me. like the juxtaposition of two time periods that are closely connected to each other in terms of motivation, cause, want - but not in literal terms. psychologically - copenhagen feels a million miles away. yet: i still think about it daily. more than daily - when i listen to illinois, actually all sufjan.. even just sitting in studio this afternoon, as we got into that studio workflow that i loved in copenhagen. like kind of bullshitting and doing no work but that being the point - late afternoon...

i guess this is all written in kind of nebulous language..but i guess it was the first time i connected the two eras in a literal way. one is a model for the other - recreating copenhagen, while aspiring to columbia. suddenly they were both real. what i mean is: we spend a lot of time missing past incarnations of ourselves, without appreciating the present (which we'll later miss as well). it was cool to be slapped into reality by a relic's appearance.

btw, new beirut: awesome. "nantes," "guyama sonora," and "forkes and knives (la fete)."

ring them bells

HOLY CRAP, best night ever.
okay.
so i got to go see sufjan stevens tonight at BAM. in the third row. like, i could walk up and shake hands with mr. stevens. it was coooool! i got this ticket cuz i was looking to buy some on craigslist, and one of the posts i replied to was a free ticket for the 'best story.' anyways, i got it, because i emailed first, and the guy selling it is originally from elfinwild road, which is like.....2 mi down my old street in pittsburgh. whoa! so him and his friends and i met up outside of BAM tonight, they gave me this insanely awesome ticket for free, and we went in to see sufjan premiere his BQE piece, which is about the brooklyn queens expressway... and is AMAZING. another pivotal part of it was that it had a lot to do with hula hoops...like 6 kids dressed in day glo doing insane hula hoop tricks in front of a full orchestra and movie screen projecting super 8 footage of the BQE sufjan took. WOAWEFIOVAERVOIQEWJ! so that piece lasted for a half hour, then there was intermission, then he played a full set:
(in sorta mis-order)

seven swans (amazing arrangement)
concerning the UFO sighting...
the black hawk war... (i couldn't believe they played these two in succession or even at all... so amazing i wanted to cry)
detriot, lift up your weary head!
john wayne gacy
casimir pulaski day
MAJESTY SNOWBIRD (slightly different arrangement, incredible.. put on the wings for this one)
predatory wasp of the palisades (another amazing made up story to go with it)
a new song no one had heard, beautiful and piano just ss. singing about kissing and barns and stuff
CHICAGO!

oh god it was great. and the people i went with were SO nice. we're going to hang out this week. cooool!

okay, so that was mind numbingly beautiful and nice and fun and exciting and new.
then i met another cool person and afterwards met up with a bunch of slcers (amy, nick, katie, analee, emma etc) and had a strongbow. me and amy decided to go home early, and on the platform:
i saw a girl carrying a hula hoop.. i ran up to her like "did you buy that at BAM tonight!!" (cuz they were selling 50 limited edition ss hula hoops) and the guy she was with was like, nah, its hers, and i realized: she was one of the six crazy hula hoopers on stage during BQE! WHOA! she had the red lipstick and dayglo orange nailpolish and everything. they were so nice, i felt bad for interrupting cuz they were kissing a little. i was all drunk like Heyy!!!

most of the time, nyc sucks so hard. but every so often this serendipity happens where you realize how closely the world can be connected under certain circumstances.

thanks nyc! i'm sure tomorrow i'll see more homeless guys fighting each other or someone will spit on me, but for now... nice!

oh, it's rush hour now, on the wheel and the plow

OMG I AM SEEING SUFJAN STEVENS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND, i thought it was just for the premier of BQE, but it's ALSO an hour of old/new songs! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
im sad i wont get to party with new kids (i.e. ashley) but hopefully the people im going with (i got the ticket for free off craigslist from someone who grew up in the development next to mine - AWESOME!) will be nice. and if not, a bunch of slcers live mere blocks from BAM. also seeing amy will be great. EWF;OEFV;OQEHNRBV;'O i'm so excited.
the person who's giving me the ticket saw s.s. a few weeks ago (i guess that kinda stuff happens in brooklyn??) and he said bqe was going to be "a fun disaster" which means it's going to be great, i'm sure. i wonder what other songs he'll play. maybe sister winter! EPOQERIH'PREIHBB

school's good, busy, everyone's sick and on the verge, or midst, of nervous breaks. im excited for the two days we have off next week, its the first break we've had, and weve all be waiting for it since... well september. there's so much to say, i feel like i can't even begin here. basically i can't wait for thanksgiving, my new bff ashley is soooo great and i like school, though it is slowly killing me.