Sometimes, living in Tel Aviv was terrible. But, as someone articulated before me, when I'm not there I miss it so much my stomach hurts.

Hello, Dear Reader,


My final review is in three days, so I'm not going to do this post justice, but...


Its almost sundown in New York, on the eve of יום הזיכרן Yom HaZekaron, Israel's Memorial Day, the day before Independence Day. The first time I went to Israel I kept a sketchbook / journal / diary of my time there. I have perhaps ten pages in that notebook of drawings and writing from the few hours I spent at Har Herzl. The emotion I felt there, the connection seems almost laughable from the jaded place I usually stand. On three hundred and sixty three days a year it sounds sappy and disgusting and I cringe when I read the things I wrote, when I look at the things I drew. But on Yom HaZekaron and on Yom Ha'atzmaut I remember the feeling, and suddenly I remember why I couldn't stop myself from filling up ten front-and-back pages of sketchbook with text and imagery when I was on Har Herzl.

It is sometimes hard for me to explain, Dear Reader, why I feel such a strong connection to Israel. Today, I think, I can boil it down to this: It is a place where I can be whoever I want to be, without having something else overshadowing that. I can be an Arse throwing bricks at people's heads (sorry for the memories, Jake), or a Haredi man putting up an Aruv and making my soon to be neighbors mental in the process (this time, sorry Ilan), or some guy, living near the beach in Tel Aviv who digs tattoo and piercing sub-culture. And, as the sun goes down tonight, Dear Reader, I remember all of the people who gave their lives so that I would have that place.

I love what I am doing. But I want to go home.


Be well, Dear Reader, and remember.

I have no idea why this day is so important to me. I'm not an aviator. I'm not an astronaut. I'm not even a scientist. The mission, if not for it's failure, would hardly have been noteworthy in the annals of Human Spaceflight. There were some firsts, but none of them astounding. There was no great race. Challenger was not going anywhere we had not been before. Yet it still hits me like a punch in the gut, every year.

I think it has something to do with the wonder of my childhood. Everything that first captured me about the unknown was so tied to spaceflight. The unexplored frontier, the blinking, unseen edge of potential. The massive size of the Universe. Something about it restores my faith in God (if thats not too oxymoronic and antithetical).

I don't want to wax too much more on this, so I'll leave you with a list of names and some of the aviator's poem.

STS-51

Michael J Smith
Dick Scobee
Ronald McNair
Ellison Onizuka
Christa McAuliffe
Gregory Jarvis
Judith Resnick


"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, nor even eagle flew. And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space... ...put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

Hello Dear Reader!

Short little such and such, I have the shadow of Task Master Jeremy hanging over my shoulder. Most important, I have a puppy! Beautiful sable fur, boundless energy, total sweetheart.

Studio, Dear Reader, is out of fucking control. Life in this little room huddled together with seven other graduate students has certainly brought me to a new level of comfort with people whom I didn't know six months ago. Its like hazing that never ends.

And now I go back to work. I will leave you, Dear Reader, with wishes for good health and tons of happiness. Also a picture and some out of context lyrics.

"Keepin the schwepervesence street ghetto essence inside us
Cause it provides us with the proper insight to guide us
Even though, we know somehow we all gotta go "

-Nasty Nas, 1994

Happy Sunday, Dear Reader,

I need a few minutes off from this midterm I'm working on, so I thought I would give you the what-for. The project I'm working on is the first in a series of iterations with the eventual goal of creating a museum to house and showcase artifacts and artwork from one of the shaker communities forty-five minutes up the road. This the same project I've been working on all semester, and its finally in a place I like. I'm not doing research on somebody else's artifact, I'm doing design work informed by the constant building and diagramming I've been doing. I'm not convinced (and neither is my studio professor) that my diagramming is at a place to make this stage of the project easily flow, but ever forward, Dear Reader.

In other news, I am in the final stages of adopting a dog. I've been trying to find and adopt a dog since before I left Israel, and I have really high hopes that this is the one. I sent an application to an organization called Out of the Pit, Albany, which specializes in American Pit Bull Terrier and Staffordshire Terrier adoptions. So, Dear Reader, the way it works is this: You send in an (incredibly detailed) application, then get interviewed over the phone, then get matched with a dog based on your desires and the personality / age / gender / etc of the dog. I've been matched with a five month old puppy named Brady (page four at the bottom of the adoption listings on that site), and I cannot wait to meet her.

In political news, we are just over a week away from the midterm elections. There's a word (well a few actually) in Hebrew / Russian which, I think, completely describes the state of US politics. Its a Balagan, Dear Reader. Its a mess, a car crash, a rioting mob. I will give you this example, from the New York State gubernatorial debates, and, please, take it as indicative of the larger political situation in this country. These debates were not just between the Democrat, legacy Andrew Cumo and his Republican opponent, Tea-Party-er Carl Paladino. There were, in fact seven participants. The media coverage of this event did not focus on Paladino's ridiculous anti gay stance, or on Cumo's plan to deal with political corruption in Albany. Instead, every single news outlet offered commentary almost exclusively concerned with Jimmy McMillian the candidate and kung fu master from the "Rent is too Damn High" party. I was unaware, Dear Reader, that parties with such narrow parties (or such epic facial hair) were taken seriously enough to be invited to major office debates, at least in post Teddy Roosevelt American. I absolutely think that more than two parties are necessary for the continued health of this country, but I'm not sure that this is the way that that gets accomplished.


What the fuck is happening, Dear Reader?

That's all I have time for at the moment, Dear Reader, its time to get back to work. I hope this post finds you well and I hope we all manage to make it through November Second without the likes of Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino hanging over our heads.

Hello, Dear Reader. Its been much too long.

At the moment I am sitting in studio waiting for the prof to come by and desk crit me. I haven't been super happy with any of the work I have produced this semester, and I'm not sure why. I need to kick it up a notch, I guess. I think I need to do one kick ass project to get my mojo back, and I'll feel good about it again. I've got to much shit I want to do to be hanging out doing mediocre work and coasting.

In other self-centered news, here are some of those plans: 1) Staff a Taglit trip in December, extend ticket, spend winter break couch surfing in TA. 2) Intern for Richard Meyer next summer, spend summer in stinking hot TA, hit on Frechas (פרכות?) make some shmeckels. 3) Reduce my life to something simple.

I'm on track for the first two, but somehow my life keeps getting more and more complicated. I keep trying to get rid of stuff, but somehow it doesn't quite happen. When I started blogging I promised myself (and you, Dear Reader) that I would never whine about my life, and so I'm just going to drop a blanket 'Bitches ain't Shit' and leave it there.

On to food art and politics! I saw top chef for the first time in probably two years while I was fucking around with Rhino at 3 am yesterday, and GOD do I want to cook. I have no idea what season it was (not one the first three) but it was a desert episode and, oh man. Seeing good, well prepared and original food makes me want to cook super bad. I have this awesome (heh) kitchen with all of the utensils and 1/3 of the spices I need, but I haven't figured out how to manage my time well enough to actually do the cooking (and grocery shopping) I want to. Its gotta happen at some point right? It feels very Japanese (something else I should cook! Do you do tempura in a wok?) drop the bullshit and the rest figures itself out.

In other news, Ahmadinejad is still an idiot (and a poor liar), even when he's being interviewed by Larry King. Watch it if you get a chance, Dear Reader, its like watching Dexter, except without the Law of Frank (Rule of Frank? I haven't seen that ep in a long time).

Well, my desk crit is coming up, so I guess I'll catch you on the Flip-Flop, Dear Reader. I hope your life is well.


EDIT: I realized I want to write something about the Tea Party and Christine O'Donnell. Forthcoming.

I am sitting in studio waiting for glue to dry, so I'm going to give you a quick update on me, Dear Reader. Today is the second to last day of my second summer semester, and oh man, has it been intense. When I was warned about the rigors of architecture school, no one over sold it. The ethos is: Done it once? Do it again. Then again. Then again. Ad Infinitum. And get them all done before 0900 tomorrow.

On the other hand, I like the design work I'm doing. The problems are super interesting, and, however much I bitch, I am a significantly better hand at all of it than I was at the beginning of the summer. So someone's got something right.

In other design related news, I was given an original Eames Chair when I moved into my apartment. If you don't know, Dear Reader, the Eames Chair and Ottoman (designed by Ray and Charles Eames in 1956) is the classic piece of modernist furniture. Its furniture so awesome it's in art museums. Like MoMA and AIC. Serious business. It is also probably the most comfortable thing I have ever parked my ass in. The dilema is this: It's an expensive piece to start with and also a collectors item. I live in what is basically a college apartment, where shit doesn't always get cleaned and people hang out in altered states.

But its so comfortable.



That's all I've got for now, Dear Reader, I hope all is well with you.

I've only got a few minutes again (since I put off blogging during my week off), but I can give you some. Finished my first accelerated summer semester at RPI, and goddamn was that intense. The stuff we're doing is really interesting and I'm enjoying it a ton, but people were not kidding when they said I'd be living in studio. Its kinda sweet though, I like being busy and I like the stuff I churn out in the end.

In other super important world news Harvey Pekar has died. The man was a Legend both in Cleveland and across the comic book world, and he will surely be missed. This, dear reader, is clearly a day without splendor.



In other news, I miss Israel and Tel Aviv like crazy. יהיה בסדר

I'm not blogging, because I have shit to finish because no matter how much time I spend in studio (0900-0330 yesterday, only slightly above average) I can't get my shit finished, but... Doctor's front page set is AMAZING. In Love. For Reals.

Peace Out, Dear Reader.

So on my second day back in the States I was confronted with another tragedy. The Albany River Rats are moving to North Carolina. I cannot accurately convey what a steaming pile of cockshit this is. I love hockey. I have followed the sport for years (even when its been terrible to watch the Isles lose). The reason I got into hockey is because of the 'Rats (who have farmed for the Devils, the Avalanche, and most recently the Canes). When I was eight or ten my dad decided to buy season tickets to see them play at the Knick. I was with him, almost every time. Hockey is truly the greatest sport to watch live on the planet, especially for an eight year old. My love was born.

And now, after perverting one of the legendary teams of professional hockey into something disgusting, unloved which could only continue to exist south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the want to take MY RATS?! Dear Reader, in their first home game of the playoffs last season the Carolina Hurricanes did not sell out their stadium until the morning of the game. Their opponents, the Pittsburgh Penguins, had sold out their first home post-season game four months earlier. FOUR MONTHS. The 'Canes have absconded with my childhood.

Dear Reader, as a sign of solidarity, the next time you are in one of the Carolinas, please, stop what you are doing, drop trou, and take a giant, steaming, mostly liquid shit on the nearest public landmark you can find. Then, pull out your Sharpie, and scrawl somewhere near it "GIVE BACK THE RATS!"

Thanks in advane, Dear Reader.