Last Year's New Year

In Frank Lloyd Wright's Seth Peterson cabin in Wisconsin. Talking Heads and the sounds of washing dishes play in the background.

Self Portrait in Frosting

Frosting on gingerbread.

Bridge No. 42-0406

Near my parents' place, Clovis, CA.

Safe

PJ told me about this safe in the basement of Rosenwald. I wonder what's inside.

How the University of Chicago Stays Warm

In the basement of Rosenwald.

Oriental Institute Library

D.G. told me about this place in a comment on the previous post. The library is up on the second floor of the Oriental Institute. There's an Indiana Jones vibe up there--I walked past a couple of open offices stuffed with weird fetishes and piles of musty books. Maybe the Ark of the Covenant was up there.

The library was very pleasant. Quieter than the Div school library, with almost no traffic noise. The chairs were big wooden affairs, less comfy than the Div school but still conducive to study. I had a pleasant afternoon reading a couple chapters of Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science in here.

Div School Library

When I was an undergrad, I thoroughly explored my college campus, in search of secluded places to study. I did find a cool library, the Kennedy Bioethics Library, in the Healy building. For whatever reason, I haven't really looked around Chicago for a similar spot, even though I've been here for five years. Last night, I was walking around campus without anything to do. I walked into the Seminary Co-op building, and decided to climb the stairs leading up the chapel. The chapel was closed, but down a paneled hallway, lined with portraits, I could see a spiral staircase and what looked like a library. I asked the girls working at the desk of the co-op what was upstairs. They said that it was the Div School library. Maybe a good place to get some thinking done?

Regenstein and Max Palevsky

More Gothic Gloom

More from the drizzly walk to campus yesterday.

Winter Break at U of C

I walked to campus today to pick up my CAS check. It has been raining, and all the snow has melted. No one was around, and campus looked especially gloomy.

Spiritual Exercises

Philosophy department, University of Chicago. Final paper drop box for Prof. Arnold Davidson's Spiritual Exercises and Moral Perfectionism class.

Rally Against the Common Application

Students rally against the common application at the University of Chicago. They are chanting: "Who are we not? BROWN! Who are we not? HARVARD! Who are we? CHICAGO! What are we? UNCOMMON!" Etc. As you can see, we got the first real snow of the year a couple days ago.

Terrible Water

I was waiting for a fellowship interview earlier this week up on the second floor of Walker, and I was so nervous that my mouth was all dry. I started frantically looking around for a drinking fountain, and I drank from this one without even noticing the sign until I took a big swig.

The water had an initial kind of citrusy taste that wasn't unpleasant, but it had a pretty foul unidentifiable aftertaste.

Lite Brite Neon

Outside Wy's studio, Brooklyn, NY.

The Rolls

More fun courtesy of Isaac & Jenny and the Manhattan Classic Car Club: the 1989 Rolls Royce Corniche II. You sit incredibly high off the ground, surrounded by all kinds of knobs and analog dials, including an analog temperature gauge. In the passenger seat, there was a champagne flute chiller by my right knee. And it's a convertible. As we cruised around Brooklyn with the windows down, no one asked us for some Grey Poupon, but we got lots of stares and one woman approached us at a light and said, "Is that a Rolls? Niiiice." I thought riding around in this kind of car would provoke a class war, but people seemed pleased just to see the Rolls roll by.

Long Island City

From the 45th Road-Courthouse Sq. subway stop. Near J & I's place.

Kings of the South Side

I agree with Zed that the sauce at Leon's is better than Harold's. My chicken palate is not discerning enough to detect any differences between the two under the sauce, however. That means that Leon's comes out ahead even though its emphasis isn't on chicken. As you can see from the sign, it is the pig that is king at Leon's.

Syntax Lesson

Some important syntactic data.

Illustration

Wyeth illustrated and animated the new Rapture video, "Whoo! Alright-Yeah... Uh Huh", now up on his website.

Somewhere over the western U.S.

What modern air travel looks like. I had an aisle seat on this flight and the woman with the window closed the shade. I can't understand why someone would do that. The view you get from the plane at cruising altitude is beautiful and mesmerizing. With the shade closed, you might as well be on a bus.

Desert Hot Springs Motel

The Desert Hot Springs Motel, by John Lautner. Acrylic furniture by Charles Hollis Jones. That acrylic chair in the middle is reasonably comfortable but nearly impossible to get out of. You have to slide yourself off the side.

Joshua Tree

The awkward, furry Joshua Tree. Somehow, I identify with them.

Volkswagen Spider

Near an auto repair yard outside Desert Hot Springs, California.

Doolittle House

The Doolittle House, by architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, just outside of Joshua Tree National Park.

The house is invisible from every angle except head on, and even then it is well-camouflaged. The fence is menacing--it appears to be made out of rusty iron. The whole complex looks like the lair of an incredibly wealthy ant lion.

Institute of Mentalphysics

The Institute of Mentalphysics, outside Joshua Tree National Park, California. The buildings were designed by Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright's son.

Proto-DEVO

In the library at the Beat Motel in Desert Hot Springs, CA.

Cabazon, California

These are the dinosaurs that appeared in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. They're in Cabazon, California, just outside of Palm Springs on I-10.

If you walk inside the brontosaurus, you will find a gift shop devoted to creationism. You can buy shirts like this one:



Two days after we arrived, an enormous arson fire was started near Cabazon that we could see in Desert Hot Springs, about 20 miles away.