Yo La Tengo and Rei Kawakubo

Currently Playing And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Yo La Tengo - Our Way to Fall

I met some Americans at Arch last night, and I must admit, one of the most intriguing things I heard (among many) is that I can get leather goods handmade by design. A drawing of a bag --> maker with tools, shop, and material --> a bag. Incredible ... the cost of labor.

I've never been so acutely aware and unaware of economic inequality anywhere. Nor have I so tangibly felt my presence on this world. The leaves crunch loudly under my feet.

But man, I am CRAVING nachos and a fresh guacamole ... no matter how authentic the Chinese food is, 'California food' is like nothing in the world: a different cuisine every meal, the freshest tastiest produce, organic gourmet, anything I like in walking distance. However, I have had some Shanghai crabs ... they are quite yum.

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Currently Reading Rei Kawakubo and Comme Des Garcons (A Blueprint monograph)By Deyan Sudjic -- Interesting read from the office:

"...a bewildering assault on the senses. They are lined with buildings positioned according to no obvious spatial pattern and with so complete an absence of visual coherence that one begins to suspect the presence of an underlying order based on systematic disorder. Zoning in the European sense simply does not exist--petrol stations and love hotels jostle with fashionable restaurants and luxury shops.

Facades are awash with shimmering neon by night and almost invisible by day behind the tangle of cables that festoons them.Yet these banal buildings frequently hide interiors designed with a sophistication and craftsmanship unmatched anywhere else in the world, as if it were the role of the interior designer to create a sense of identity within this chaotic context....

In the hunt for the next novelty, ideas are seized on, exploited and plagiarized with breathless haste before finally being discarded as outmoded. In such an environment, the way an object is presented has become as important as what it is. Hence the design of a shop interior has attained the status of a minor art form."

Mismatch between inside and outside ...