Soooo. Mexico City. I've never been, heard lots about. Not sure how much I believe, but its supposed to be pretty wild. These photos are pretty surreal, they're taken by a guy whose job is basically to fly around the city in a helicopter. Fuck yes, eh?
These are all from a slide show he did, with his captions included.
"Xico volcano crater, behind is Chalco where few streets are paved." Is that farm land inside the crater?
"What a way to block the sun from the neighbors! (Bosque de las Lomas)" and how rich do you have to be to buy and build on this lot!?
"Huge growth of housing projects like these for low income families, Ixtapaluca." I would've thought this was computer generated, it looks so cartoony, except there are empty lots and houses that are cast, but yet to painted in the background. I wonder if our projects in the States would feel better if we painted them all up like this.
"This apartment building is pretty intersting, Interlomas." Hell yes it is.
When I was in 8th grade they sent our entire class to a 'retreat' and the opening to this entire thing was an interpretive dance group doing 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' with this young woman running around stage being manhandled by these faceless people in black body stockings with labels like "Drugs", "Alcohol", and "Sex." It was not the best approach to get to us. Maybe that's why I like this video so much. Or it could be that I just like really bad, really silly music videos.
Lately there's been a little buzz about those development holdouts who won't sell and wind up having their houses thirty feet in the air on a mound of dirt while construction goes on all around them. Boingboing listed this guy, who's a historic Seattle holdout.
Imagine a time when downtown Seattle was a swampy mess that was basically right at sea level, where the toilets would overflow at high tide. Looking north there was Belltown, built on land once claimed by a guy named Bell, which occupied everything from present day Second Avenue down to the water. Everything between there and Capital Hill was hilly and rough and ended on the western edge in cliff several stories tall. So that whole stretch from my place on Second Ave through the Space Needle and EMP up to Queen Anne was basically unoccupied. This was the horse & buggy period, so nobody wanted anything to do with this stretch, too much of a pain to build on and nobody would drive there even if you could. So this guys gets a bright idea: let's get rid of the bluff. "Lets wash it away." So you know what they did? They literally hosed the entire hill down towards the water. Think about that: guys with hoses sitting there all day, washing dirt down towards the water. Totally changed the look of things, ya know? (That blur between the hills is a house built after the regrade.)
Then there's all sorts of primo location land opened up for development. There are big plans for civic centers and a very cool bus system by a big shot architect. But the big downtown property owners along Pike and Pine Streets were not too pleased and wound up killing the project. Sounds like Seattle is still pretty much the same, huh?
For more on this check out HistoryLink.org and Wikipedia.
It's really amazing to consider that these guys look just like normal people. Scarily Normal People.
And YouTube is almost, kinda my hero.
Teh intranets is full of wonderful things. I'm not too sure about how I feel on the subject of making a captive audience listen to your performance on the Paris Metro, but damn, these guys are good. Naturally 7, a bunch of New Yorkers who appear to be based out of Germany now:
(via boingboing)
If you spend any time moving around the U.S. this will come up a serious topic of conversation at least once. When I moved from Seattle(ish) to Washington, DC and lived in a dorm with kids from all over the country there was a discussion on it that lasted a week. Is pop gauche? Is saying soda just a way to be an asshole? Was it a matter of habit? Propriety? Imagine the nasally twang that makes pop into pap and a Minnesota accent saying soooduh. Freaking hilarious. The only thing that we could really agree on is that the Southrons who call it coke are just trashy.
This video is pretty cool. Not necessarily because of it's fun old-timey graphics, or because it feels like the Hitchhikers Guide animations. Ok, so those things do definitely help, but I think it's awesome because it explains everything I hate about the national security/anti-terror programs that are being put in place with no regard for civil liberties. Plus it doesn't get too far off into torch-waving-Libertarian territory, either.
Let's do a thumbnail work-up here, shall we? A home schooled sixteen year old girl in Alabama with Pentecostal parents who really likes chess. Not exactly my idea of a mover and shaker on the internet antiwar scene, but damn, stranger things have happened. Meet Ava Lowery.
You've probably already seen her video WWJD? Warning: It's not for the faint of heart. When it came around I knew that it was a young girl who'd made it, but that doesn't nearly cover the entire story. She's got a substantial collection of well edited videos on her website Peace Takes Courage. And Mother Jones has published an article (where I stole the picture) about her 16th birthday on the steps of the state capitol, where George Wallace gave his very famous segregation speech. I'm a big fan of the birthday concept, too.
See this kid here? He's fucking playing. Ain't got no idee bout them hard streets.
He's young, doofy, and cute. Completely unlike the trailer for Hobo With a Shotgun. This thing is violent, vulgar, and bloody. According to boingboing it was also produced for less than $100 -- CANADIAN!! So, yeah. Mad props and a woot! for the hobocore set.
(via boingboing)
It's a bit of an odd figure of speech, yes? Heard it anew the other day when Ella Fitzgerald's "Let's Do It" was playing on the overhead. To fall into love. As in 'off a great height' or 'into a puddle.' Funny how it gets twisted, turned, and abused all over. I mean think about Ella's take on it:
Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it.....
Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love
Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love
Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks em I know
Why ask if shad do it - Waiter bring me
"shad roe"
In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love
And so what you might ask? Obviously, she's talking about sex, not so much the love part of things. (Shad roe = fish eggs.) You can chalk this up to a more straitlaced time when such things had to be a little more camouflaged or, heaven forbid, done with more taste. However, might not this go back further? Ever hear of The Fall, as in 'of Man from the Garden?' Ostensibly, Adam and Eve were kicked out for learning the knowledge of Good and Evil. This included a keen awareness of being nekkid. For me, an armchair unbeliever, this is all about the sex, forget the Good & Evil bit. Sooo, The Fall = being caught while sexin', which has been closely associated with metaphysical love, so we add the addendum of = being in love. So I'm thinking 'to fall in love' is a linguistic harkening back to the Biblical narrative of Man gettin' tossed out of Eden for making the beast with two backs.
