Tagged: Frank Gehry
The way of the world
Re “American Sniper”: We’ve reached peak war film. It’s a tired genre. Time to retire it.
A film critic has conscientiously pointed out that a fictional narrative of the life of Stephen Hawking is not a carbon copy of reality: “It would be a big mistake to take The Theory of Everything as a user’s guide to living with motor neurone disease.” Really? I note this not simply because it is my current pet peeve, but only because this sort of nonsense is ubiquitous, universal. I’m only surprised I didn’t notice this tendency earlier in life.
Jodi Ernst is the Marine Le Pen of the Republican Party.
The most noticeable tall buildings in NYC now are the middle-fingers sprouting up in Brooklyn and Queens, which tower over everything around them. But at least downtown Brooklyn was spared the embarrassment of a Frank Gehry toadstool patch when the original Atlantic Yards project crumbled.
Hopefully, Mr Dehlin won’t face banishment to the planet Kolob for uttering twenty-first century views on women and same-sex marriage.
Don’t say a word
Things were better before there were facts. — (Anon. Buzzfeed Journalist).
Concerning his critical appraisal of the “spring clean” of Chartres Cathedral: Martin Filler is likely a typical American blowhard (and the French grandees are right to scoff at his claims), but I appreciate his accurate description of Frank Gehry in the The New York Review of Books.
It is axiomatic among architectural editors and art directors that if a building is not very good, then one should use images of it at sundown; if it is worse than that, show it reflected in water at twilight. This perhaps explains why several publications, including Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, have depicted Gehry’s newest work in a dim crepuscular glow, rising above its shallow pools and dramatic stepped cascade. Recourse to special photographic lighting does address one of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s basic shortcomings, however, for in a city where it is overcast much of the time, a glass-skinned structure such as this is bound to look rather dull quite often.
*
I’m surprised there was ever a market for ghost-written autobiographies.
It would be more apt to characterize the careers of Beyoncé, Gaga, and the like as having achieved a “partial Madonna.” Ms Ciccone is the original.
Billburg
Despite appearances, Williamsburg is a bit gritty, looks like East Berlin in the right light. Additionally, houses with vinyl siding give Billburg a working-class feel.
Comparatively, the late 80s was no golden age. Streets of the East Village and Lower East Side were littered with needles and crack vials (in the Bronx, with bullet casings). It was an era of libertine excess. The presence of gentrifiers, who attract police protection, lowered the body count. Now it is hopeless, a desolate high rent district marred by Frank Gehry’s melting monstrosity. Only the art star scene clings to life there.
Williamsburg was a refuge from the universal march of commodification in Manhattan, and still retains its less than posh character despite the influx of trust funders with liberal arts degrees. Unlike the EV/LES, the Billburg hipster scene is low key, understated. Its addictions to free wifi, lattes brewed and poured with artisanal care, and American Spirits are preferable to crack rock and concealed glocks. Not every woman there is a Hannah Horvath.
Et cetera 