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Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-05-15 17:56:57 +0000

It is letter's like this that make me glad to be a fellow Somervillian. While I haven't read any Almond, he clearly has a good grasp of English. I might have to read "My Life in Heavy Metal". ("1776" isn't going so well.) Serious question: Can anyone name someone who is as dramatic a failure as Condi Rice, that continues to work? Kevin Costner? Rumsfeld? Frank Gehry?

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-15 22:24:59 +0000

I wouldn't put Rice in with those scoundrels. What has she failed to accomplish that she had set out to? Un-normalizing relations with Libya? She's about two years behind the curve on Iran, I don't think the blame falls squarely on her shoulders. We'll have to see how that crisis unfolds. I'd argue that Powell is a bigger failure; he wasn't able to consul Bush against the course of acion favored by Cheney & Rumsfeld. Rice's accomplishment is that she seems to become more Powellian and has moved Bush with her. --- I still pinch myself sometimes, "What, did we really invade Iraq?" Was it autumn of 2002 when the Congress gave it's "permission"? I remember listening to the debate and thinking, "There is noooo waaaay this passes." Oh well.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-16 12:18:06 +0000

I actually like Gehry's work. That's why art is subjective.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-16 12:20:31 +0000

I used to look forward to days when I'd ride the CT2 to the Medical Area from Union Square so that I could look with awe and wonderment at the beauty that was unfolding on the MIT campus due to Gehry's vision and innovation. It was a highlight in a day usually filled with people complaining; the sight of his clean lines and beautifully awkward angles made me focused and calm. I LOVED it.

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-16 17:19:46 +0000

I prefer the building further up Main St. The one that straddles the railroad tracks. If The Beatles had produced "Revolver" 25 times, would you get excited about the 26th one? I understand that I don't see that many Gehry's in the course of my day (week?, month?). Gehry's buildings are like a Yngwie Malmsteen solo. Then again, I always enjoy walking through the Carpenter Visual Arts Center; maybe Le Corbusier mailed that one in, but I like it.

Posted by buzzorhowl on 2006-05-16 17:31:57 +0000

Gehry also did the Virgin Megastore building down on the corner of Mass Ave and Newbury Street -- a little less Yngwie.

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-05-16 17:32:25 +0000

It's totally coincidental that I came across this article on Yngwie today. Holy crap..."You have unleashed the [expletive] fury!"

Posted by MF DU on 2006-05-16 19:10:55 +0000

I wasn't feelin' this thread at first, but the Gehry / Malmsteen references have made it worth my while. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen.

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-16 19:52:15 +0000

"Was Malmsteen the greatest guitarist ever, or a hack who played scales really fast?" Gehry is a hack who has really good CAD software. While we're on the topic of architecture I 1) saw Hannah and Her Sisters on Sunday night. Great stuff. 2) highly recommmend My Architect, it's about Louis Kahn's bastard son. Gehry makes an appearance.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-16 20:13:15 +0000

I did a paper in college comparing the Carpenter Center to the Walter Gropius designed anthropology building on the Brandeis campus. Sold my first duct tape clutch purse to an MIT student who was trying to eat the Carpenter Center by sanding off parts and mixing it into her food. I didn't feel bad charging her $30.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-05-17 01:14:23 +0000

Rice? Sept. 11th? She forgot to read the memo? Pretty big failure. Maybe not her career afterwards (though she certainly failed during her years at Stanford before) but she made perhaps the biggest failure in American security history.

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-17 02:29:02 +0000

So, if Rice had read one memo, the attacks of Sept. 11th are thwarted?

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-17 02:30:37 +0000

It is arguable better if in fact: "I did a paper collage comparing the Carpenter Center to the Walter Gropius designed anthropology building on the Brandeis campus."

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-05-17 05:44:27 +0000

"One memo"? My "the memo" in the previous port was sarcastic. She was inundated with info about bin Laden. I'm sorry, but Rice's "I forgot to read the memo" line would be like Bush saying the dog ate the intelligence report stating Iraq had no WMD. Perhaps if she remembered her meetings with out going National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, or the meetings with counterterrorisn expert Richard Clarke, who both laid out the ground work for fighting al Qaeda for the next term. Alas, according to Time magazine, "Some members of the outgoing Administration got the sense that the Bush team thought the Clintonites had become obsessed with terrorism. 'It was clear,' says one, that this was not the same priority to them that it was to us." Rice's failure to heed years of experience and warnings is also a part of the Sept. 11th tragedy, and as I said before

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-17 13:51:44 +0000

I doubt that if Gore had been elected --er, appointed by the SCOTUS-- and Berger & Clarke were still in office, that the attack on Sept. 11, 2001 would have been thwarted. Most memorably, Clarke apologized for his failure concerning the attacks during the 9/11 Commission hearings. The heralded capture of the truck bomb headed to LAX in 1999 had more to do with luck than with any extra diligence by the Clinton-era agencies. Same could have been true in 2001. There was a meeting in NY by an inter-agency terrorist task force in spring or early summer 2001. If the CIA members had mentioned to the FBI members that they were concerned about two suspected terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda that they had lost track of in Indonesia, maybe the FBI would have picked up the two terror pilots training in San Diego -- who were living with an FBI informant at the time. This doesn't absolve Rice from laxity in this arena. I don't recall her "I didn't read the memo" statement. You are right, that's a bit much. The nonchalance that the then National Security Advisor had concerning this issue could not have helped; she's also made some disturbingly inaccurate statements (as Steve Alomnd attests). I wouldn't single her out as the worst failure, however. Bush _is_ the President, whether he wants to be or not.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-17 15:40:51 +0000

Brandeis was almost entirely designed by Gropius, and his firm. Most recently there have been some more avant garde additions to the original intent of brick with limestone trim buildings. I prefer the lines and intricacies of the Carpenter Center, but the continuity of Brandeis made for most of my senior thesis paintings...which didn't end up getting me honors.

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-17 15:54:26 +0000

Miriam's paintings revealed. I'm sure you've told me this before. I get it now.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-17 17:06:24 +0000

Post-'Deis the colors are more vibrant, which is weird since most of them were painted in the basement of the Malbert while drunk and listening to jazz at 2am.

Posted by tommy on 2006-05-17 19:37:10 +0000

Googled "eat the Carpenter Center" and found an interview. "I will fail at eating the entire Carpenter Center in my lifetime", says she. Her name is Emily Katrencik and she is apparently a construction-material-ingesting-artist, who also recently "performed" a "piece" where she ate a sheetrock wall in an art gallery.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-17 20:32:41 +0000

Good to see she's "still crazy after all these years!"

Posted by MF DU on 2006-05-17 21:38:24 +0000

gives a new meaning to the phrase 'Eat shit and die'

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-17 22:25:16 +0000

she wasn't eating shit, and I can imagine all that stuff clogging her up pretty good.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2006-05-17 23:01:21 +0000

That girl needs a bran muffin and a pot of coffee.

Posted by G lib on 2006-05-18 13:00:05 +0000

Pamsterdam, I almost just spat iced coffee out my nose. Thanks!

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-18 15:55:18 +0000

So true. So true. When I met her, she was mixing the concrete shavings into pudding.

Posted by MF DU on 2006-05-18 16:04:46 +0000

truly suffering for yr art. nice.

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-18 19:09:54 +0000

One of my bosses, while we were on our way to lunch at the Waffle House (my choice), told me that he's reading "1776." He just got through Boston fending off the British.

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-18 21:13:45 +0000

All I can really say to that is: UK OUT OF AMERICA!!!!

Posted by Miriam on 2006-05-18 22:17:55 +0000

That started at the Peeps Reeps, right? What a night.

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-19 01:28:24 +0000

It started in frickin' Concord, MA. Old North Bridge.

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-05-19 07:36:17 +0000

"The 'Battle of Lexington' was fought in Concord by the men of Acton." April 19th 1775. What a morning!

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-05-19 12:42:19 +0000

That's up for debate: '"The shot heard 'round the world" was fired at Lexington Green, a village common in the town of Lexington, which is on the route from Boston to Concord. There is controversy on this subject, no one actually knows who fired first. In Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem "The Shot Heard 'Round the World", he refers to the British firing upon the colonists. Yet some historians and park rangers feel that the shot was actually fired when colonists at the Old North Bridge, a bridge in Concord spanning the Sudbury/Concord River, opened fire on the Redcoats.' Gotta reprazent for the home town!

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-05-19 12:56:03 +0000

Oh, wait, I think something just went over my head.

Posted by G lib on 2006-05-19 13:00:25 +0000

The shot heard 'round the world went over your head? BQ-- GODDAMNIT, I THINK CDUBS STOLE THE TIME MACHINE AGAIN!

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-19 13:28:54 +0000

O'er the bridge that arced the flood, the farmers stood knee deep in mud. They fired the shot that was damn good shootin', the people, they heard it, clear down to Newton.

Posted by MF DU on 2006-05-19 13:35:17 +0000

you guys are getting all Colonial up in this piece!

Posted by cdubrocker on 2006-05-19 14:17:09 +0000

"Colonial House: rideside edition." Who's the first to crack?

Posted by MF DU on 2006-05-19 14:59:13 +0000

Posted by buzzorhowl on 2006-05-19 16:35:17 +0000

Posted by dawnbixtler on 2006-05-22 19:16:15 +0000

Not the most joyful commencement speech at BC this afternoon. But then what do I know? I didn't go to mine. Side note: 45 minutes ago this AP article's last paragraph read, "Rice said the use of torture in Iraq was 'the right thing.'", not "Rice said the use of force in Iraq was "'the right thing,'" as it currently reads. Odd, is that Andy Breitbart's hand, or an actual AP bulletin revision?

Posted by tgl on 2006-05-22 19:49:02 +0000

"There is nothing wrong with holding an opinion and holding it passionately," Rice said, "but at those times when you are absolutely sure you're right, go find someone who disagrees." I just puked in my mouth a little bit. This must have been something the Administration learned after 1,500 American casuality. Or maybe they'll realize this when we suffer our 2,500th. I take students acting rude with a grain of salt. I expect 50-year-old adults to refrain from chastising said students for failures they themselves are _still_ committing to be a bit galling.