User Profile

My view of the world comes through architecture. Making space for human activity is one of the most intimate acts I can imagine, and looking at the forms created by others--at any place or time--tells me a great deal about people I may never be privileged to meet. This journal is about architecture and history, as both a noun (object) and a verb (process), and about the ways those ideas have contributed to my becoming.

SOME OTHER STUFF ABOUT ME: 5-10, 220#, o.t.d., shaved head, bearded, quiet, kinky, romantic, passionate, artistic, fragile, eclectic, durable, eccentric, esoteric. Here are some words/ideas/people that have meaning for me: PLACES: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest, Chicago, Glasgow, Helsinki, Istanbul, Liverpool, Manchester, Philadelphia, Portland, Toronto...(do you sense a theme here?) MUSIC: John Adams, Bach, Bartok, Couperin, Delius, Elgar, Faure, Fitkin, Ginastera, Glass, Ricky Ian Gordon, Daron Hagen, Hindemith, Ives, Janacek, Pat Metheny, Minimalism of most any sort, Nyman, Prokofiev, Rameau, Rascal Flats, Satie, Schuman & Schumann, Sorabji, Esperanza Spalding, Sufjan Stevens, Torke, Turnage, Raif Vaughan Williams, Villa Lobos, Wainwright (both Loudon and Rufus), Walton, Yellowjackets, Maury Yeston. THEATER/OPERA: "Nixon in China," "Sweeney Todd," "All in the Timing," "A Man for All Seasons,"... READING: Akunin, Richard Dawkins, Emily Dickenson, Gnosticism, Harris (Robert and Thomas), Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy, Christopher Hitchens, McLean’s, McSweeney's, The Nation, The Progressive, Finite and Infinite Games (by James P. Carse, possibly the most meaningful book I have ever encountered)... MOVIES: "African Queen," "American Beauty," "Amistad," "City of Lost Children," "Dangerous Liaisons," "The Green Mile," "The Horse's Mouth" (and ANYTHING else with Alec Guinness), "The Hudsucker Proxy," "The League of Gentlemen" (notice I didn't include "Extraordinary"), "Ordinary People,"... FOOD: TexMex, Thai, Vietnamese, anything with cabbage, including kim-chi... HISTORY: Victorian, ecclesiology, the Progressive Era; historical fiction... ART/ARCHITECTURE: Aalto, Albers, Lawrence Buck (bet you've never heard of him), Bucknall, Butterfield, Cachemaille-Day, Holman Hunt, Jefferson, Monet, William Morris, Nicholson, Plecnik, Pugin, Soane, Sullivan, Elihu Vedder, Viollet-le-Duc, Whistler, Wright... COMPUTERS: mackintosh, google, ebay. THE EROTIC: kissing, cuddling, maximum body contact, 69, leather, rubber, making out...for days! Yes, I have a fetish for rubber (the heavy-duty black kind worm by commercial divers, firefighters, etc.). But you should know that it is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself; rubber gear enhances the experience of intimacy I have with others, and I am prepared to dispense with it when it stands in the way of that intimacy. THE ESOTERIC: languages (Basque, Gaelic, Manx, Breton, Catalan...); gnosticism... THINGS I BELIEVE: there is a vast difference between seeing and looking; intimacy and sex; spirituality and religion; justice and the law; power and control; closure and cloture; education and training; theater and drama; being careful or cautious; knowing contentment or happiness. Given a choice, I strive for the former every time...almost. Love is rare and difficult; lust is plentiful and far too easy. Finding a friend and being one are each hard work but mutually rewarding. Actions and words confirm one another; be VERY concerned when there is a significant discrepancy between the two. Privilege and responsibility are also closely related; but while privilege begets responsibility, I have never assumed that it works the other way. A really great question is worth 10,000 facile replies pretending to be answers. SOME NAMES I HAVE BEEN CALLED: caring, cheat, clever, cute, dilatory, distant, enigma, intelligent, ironic, mean, right-brained (as opposed to left...), stalker, smart, tender. MEMORABLE QUOTES: "Loneliness is not being alone; it is loving others to no avail." [Mario Stefani]; "Religious faith is...ineradicable. It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other." [Christopher Hitchens]; " Faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail." [Sam Harris]; "The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish." [James P. Carse]; "Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real." [Hannibal Lechter]; "Better a dish of herbs where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it." [Proverbs 15:17]; "Searching for a handle on the moment here?" ["Kay" in MiB]; "Stability and contentment have been achieved." [Baldar Conehead]; "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards." [The Queen of Hearts in Through the Looking-Glass]. THE ANTI-CHRIST DU JOUR: James Dobson. MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS OF DOUBT & UNCERTAINTY: Too many to conveniently list them all here...but how is it that I can be both complete and unfinished?

And now, a few words about YOU: whole, smart, clever, inquisitive, romantic, cuddly...maybe even shy; must love dogs; passionate about something…besides/in addition to yourself, that is. What are you reading? Do you make stuff (for reasons other than a paycheck)? Would your parents and I enjoy meeting?

I am human. I am heroic and therefore (as someone has recently reminded me) necessarily flawed. I have made and will continue to make mistakes (and I will gladly introduce you to them). Like you, I will eventually die, but until then I am alive. I am both simple and complex and worth the effort to find out why. I am archipelagic, not continental.

I am a work in progress, an evolving "self," as are you.

Incidentally...all contents of this journal are copyright © 2007, 2008 and 2009 by the author. The reproduction or reuse of any text or images contained herein is both prohibited and rude.






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