Everything Is Science Fiction

James Graham Ballard - 15 November 1930 to 19 April 2009

I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that is my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again…the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul. — J. G. Ballard

I was a latecomer to the J. G. Ballard fan base. This did not stop me, however, from being quickly, deeply affected by his work, and from thinking, for the first time in years when discovering a “new” writer, as I had when one of my editors at HarperCollins first introduced me to the work of Thomas Bernhard in the mid-1990s, “How had I not already read this writer’s work?!” This is precisely how I felt upon reading Ballard’s Millennium People for the first time (of three times; I read it again, twice, immediately upon completion) early last year. So today, in the middle of only my second reading of Ballard’s Super-Cannes: A Novel, I find myself deeply saddened by the death of such a brilliant, visionary writer.

His work focused on, as Tomorrow Museum’s Joanne McNeil notes in her thorough, excellent retrospective of Ballard’s life and work, “a distrust of technology and human nature […] a sense of the absurdity of shopping malls and an intuitive understanding how architecture, especially in its most banal forms, affects our emotions. Ballard shunned email and Internet, it was irrelevant to his obsessions. His concern was space, the body, travel, the dark underbelly of a suburban tract housing development.” And I think it is precisely Ballard’s distrust of technology vis-à-vis human nature that drew me so strongly into his work, much as Bernhard’s distrust of society vis-à-vis human nature drew me so strongly into his own.

And I think it is this quintessentially Ballardian wariness of technology, and the future, the very things about which he wrote passionately and prolifically, that will be missed the most.

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RELATED SITES

• For fellow latecomers to J. G. Ballard’s work, the above-referenced article at Tomorrow Museum, JG Ballard, Our Greatest Living Novelist Is No Longer, is an excellent starting point, as are the Museum’s J. G. Ballard archives.
• Ballardian.com, “a very unofficial site exploring tropes and motifs found in the work of J. G. Ballard,” edited and published by Simon Sellars, also provides an astonishingly thorough compendium of the novelist’s work, life, and thought. Sellars’ Ballard obituary is a great place to begin.

Filed under: Architecture, Books, Technology , Ballardian.com, J. G. Ballard, linkage, science fiction, Thomas Bernhard, Tomorrow Museum, urban appreciation

Designing A Sustainable Future

We Are Not From Kalamazoo - Proposal For La Reunion Artist Residence

Sustainable design, the philosophy of designing products, architecture, and services to comply with principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability, has been one of the fastest-growing trends in the world of design for the last several years. A movement to eliminate all negative environmental impact via innovative design, it is a philosophy that may be applied throughout all fields of design, from large-scale urban planning to small-scale product packaging.

Design Green Now, a touring think tank of leaders in sustainable design and development, is an invaluable resource for any designer or entrepreneur who wants to know what designers are doing to improve the current state of our environment. The Design Green Now collective has confirmed three New York City panels to take place during the month of April, during which panelists will address the challenges they face and methods they have utilized to succeed in designing to achieve sustainability.

• Innovative Materials: 01 April 2009 at Pratt Institute; featuring Dan Rubinstein of Surface Magazine, Paul S. Mankiewicz of Gaia Institute, Jason Salfi of Comet Skateboards, Andrew H. Dent of Material ConneXion, and Mitchell Joachim of Terreform 1.
• Totally Wasted: Reusing, Recycling, and Reclaiming Resources: 02 April 2009 at FIT; featuring Andrew Personette of EcoSystems and Tiffany Threadgould of TerraCycle, Inc.
• New Approaches To Energy: 13 April 2009 at Parsons The New School for Design; featuring Susan Szenasy of Metropolis, Serge Appel of Cook+Fox Architects LLP, Stephan Von Muehlen of Energy Hub, Brent Baker of TriState BioDiesel, and Anthony Pereira of altPOWER.

Design Green Now has also been selected as a March 2009 Finalist at ideablob.com, and thus has the chance to win a $10,000 grant toward fulfilling its goals of educating designers, entrepreneurs, and the public on the importance of sustainable design to the environment and to the future. Voting for Design Green Now is possible from now through Tuesday, 31 March 2009, and requires only a quick verification of email. I voted for Design Green Now because as a designer who is a strong proponent of sustainable design, I believe in the programs and education that this collective is affording me and my peers. I voted for Design Green Now so that it can continue to reach designers and entrepreneurs with its messages of design change. And I voted for Design Green Now in order to help myself and others become not just designers of pretty things, but agents of transformation, as well.

Won’t you join me?

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RELATED ARTICLES

• Props to Design Green Now from Core77: 24 March 2009.

Filed under: Architecture, Design, Editorials, New York , conferences, design green now, environment, green, linkage, sustainability, video

Photoblogging My Honolulu: Fin

Usually when I post a photoblog I like to narrate each image with my words, tell a little story about what the image means, or contains, or conveys. Usually I do this because I am never quite sure that my photographs are powerful enough to stand on their own, that they need my words to prop them up, so that they do not topple over like cardboard walls in a strong wind storm. But it is difficult for me to condense my ten years of experiences in Honolulu, in Hawaii, into short narrations of the images contained in this final island photoblog; there are simply too many memories, too many people, too many emotions, to attach to each capture.

So I shall allow them to speak for themselves. Except I shall borrow a quotation from a previous Island Girl to act as an introduction for this final Hawaii photoblog of the Island Boy.

No one can say you didn’t live Hawaii. You are Hawaii, in a way. You slept pressed against her very flesh. The island and everything you are to one another is forever a part of your two respective soul prints. — AV Flox

I think that sums up my ten years here, and this collection of images, rather succinctly.

Filed under: Architecture, Photography, Travel , alucina, defining moments, hawaii, honolulu, linkage, lonely planet, memories, oahu, photoblogging, pimpage, urban appreciation

The AB Remainders: Inaugural

As I have finally settled into and become comfortable again with my revitalized online blogging and researching habits, and, in an effort to provide a bit of context to what would otherwise end-up non-contextualized entries in my Tumblelog, thus further (and only a little falsely) perpetuating my online reputation as an eclectic, sometimes depressed, sometimes manic, emo artfag geek of all trades, I present: The Atherton Bartelby Remainders. Since in general once Friday rolls around I am usually too exhausted by the previous week to blog about anything coherently, I thought I would launch a new regular blog feature and cross my fingers that it does not travel where all of the previous “new blog features” have traveled in this blog, i.e., down the toilet. So this is where I will collect a handful of all of my Internet discoveries throughout each week that I in some way found inspirational, interesting, shocking, entertaining, or humorous, and want to share with others who may find them so, as well, or simply want to keep them hanging around for myself, at the end of a week that just totally tapped me out.

Yes, I totally just pimped my own blog. That is how I roll, people.

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• Speaking of tapping, I may be an extremely liberal-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage (but not for myself, obviously), Democrat Party card-carrying gay man, but even I must admit that I totally have a crush on the 31-year-old John McCain. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve always had a thing for cute guys with prematurely silver hair, but, in the words of another blogger whose piece on the topic I came across yesterday, “I want to tap that so hard you guys.” Check out “I Am Totally Crushin’ On Young McCain” (and please be sure to watch the smokin’ hot video clip, as well!) on 236.com, via Gawker.
• The architecture nerd in me was reawakened like woah throughout the past several weeks, so I was elated to read that 860-880 North Lake Shore Drive, one of my favorite works of architecture in my hometown of Chicago and one of Mies van der Rohe’s first glass-and-steel high-rises, is finally undergoing some direly-needed restoration. An excellent photo essay of the project, with commentary: “Mies’ Lake Shore Drive Apartments Not Looking Good These Days,” on The New Modernist Edward Lifson, via Gaper’s Block.
• “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” is a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, adapted for film by director David Fincher (starring Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt *dies*) and set for a Holiday 2008 release. I have always harbored a, well, curious obsession with this piece (probably yet another subconscious informant of the title of this very blog), and am happy / relieved to find that I am not the only one, as Jason Kottke seems to be compiling an impressive array of “TCCOBB”-related information and links. The Apple trailer for the film is available here, first discovered via Kottke.org.
• Another very recent, very pervasive obsession of mine? Images of and from Mars. I cannot articulate how special, fragile, strong, insignificant, and…fantastic…they make me feel, every time I see them. Once again, Boston.com’s truly astonishingly good “The Big Picture” delivers all shades of nothing but win in this arena, as well, with the most impressive collection of Mars-related imagery I have seen thus far, in “Martian Skies,” collected on Chicagoist.
• Those who are, like me, positively loving the latest version of Mozilla’s Firefox, yet have not, like me, thoroughly enjoyed seeing how the new browser displays images (i.e., rather desaturated), may want to tweak their Firefox settings to turn color profile support “on” in order to see a representation of colors more faithful to those in the original images. First brought to my attention via Joi Ito and Xeni Jardin, there is a great walk-through up now on Lifehacker.com for those interested in the fix.
• Tracks Currently Rocking My Decks (Errr…iTunes) On Repeat: David Vandervelde’s lush, happy, 1970s AM radio-esque “I Will Be Fine”, via Chicagoist; the Violent Femmes’ cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” (yes, you read that correctly, and yes, it sounds as freaking amazing as it reads), discovered on MySpace, via Gawker; and that catchy, addictive, oddly nostalgia-inducing “Again And Again” by The Bird And The Bee, which I eventually found on MySpace but originally saw in an equally cool video posted via Plaid’s Brand Flakes For Breakfast.
• Finally, I do not think I even need to comment at length on how shrilly this last item screams “Atherton Bartelby,” nor how perfect and fitting of a birthday gift it would be for me. I present: The Alfred Hitchcock The Birds Barbie Doll, originally via Boing Boing.

Always have a smart skirt suit handy, mind the birds, and have a fabulous weekend!

Filed under: Architecture, Art, Blogging, Books, Film, Media, Music, Photography, Politics, Technology , chicago, humor, linkage, lists, omgwtfbbq, photoblogging, pimpage, remainders, retail therapy, science, urban appreciation, video

A Summer To Aspire

When I was very young (probably too young to be dreaming these kinds of things but then there you have it: I was one precocious little tow-head), I used to dream of the place I would call “home” after I had become an adult. Fueled by a combination of my own bizarre imagination and a wide variety of literature, television series, and films that depicted the personal living spaces of my favorite protagonists, I always dreamed of living high above a city, in a single room, made cozy by the presence of large, heavy bookcases filled to overflowing, comfortable furniture just begging to be inhabited by myself or others, and, usually, a black baby grand Steinway. I always thought of it as my haven, the place I aspired to live in that would always greet me with warmth and comfort at the end of my days doing…well, whatever my imagination at the time decided I was doing during those days. I never did assume it was in any other city than Chicago, due mostly I think to the vision of a water view outside of its floor-to-ceiling windowpanes. And, oddly, I never did imagine any other person inhabiting it with me, unless one were to count the lone feline I always imagined meeting me at the door when I would enter.

It is only recently that those dreams have returned.

It is only recently that a lot of things have returned: to my imagination, to my daily activities, to my life, both present and future. Like pursuing and nurturing my own taste in music, and discovering new artists that I like, versus parroting the musical tastes of whomever I happened to be closest to at the time. Like spending my mornings researching what really excites me on the Internet; not only design and writing and books and film and gossip, but technology, extreme sports, and architecture, as well. Like smiling when something I do come across in my online research makes me remember that apartment dream of mine from long ago, and my old love for and pride in my hometown.

My del.icio.us bookmarks tell me that I came across the website for The Chicago Spire a little over a week ago, and I remember gasping sharply when I first saw it, incredulous that I had been so wrapped up in my own life, drama, and depression over the past year that I had not even realized that its construction was occurring…in my hometown. I spent over an hour on the site and on others, devouring information on the project, the architect, the inspiration. Everything about it made me…happy.

Several days later, in a weekend catch-up chat with my old college friend Remington in New York, he mentioned a recent meeting with his landscaper for his property upstate. “Oh my God, Darling,” I drawled, “listen to you! You sound so…adult!” We laughed. Three months ago I would have carelessly rattled off something very Carrie Bradshaw-esque regarding renting versus owning property and how I would “always be a renter.” But this time I actually felt a twinge of jealousy. Despite Remington’s remark that “landscaper” was actually code for “gay guy with garden store,” I couldn’t help but feel as if I wanted something like that to care about in my life. Certainly not landscaping and living green things; Lord knows I kill everything like that. But definitely something more permanent, more stable, and…all about me.

So I decided to make a little (actually, it’s not so little at all, since I inquired as to the unit pricing earlier today) goal for myself: that I would be living in my own unit in The Chicago Spire by the end of the next five years, or 2013. I’ve seen anywhere from 2010 to 2012 as a completion date for the project, so I figure that 2013 will be a good year during which to plan on taking up residence in the nature- and Le Corbusier-inspired tower on The Lake, to give myself a very special gift of thanks for allowing all of these great things to return to my life, and to see that long-ago childish apartment dream of mine…finally come true.

It’s fitting, then, that in the city that invented the skyscraper, Santiago Calatrava’s breathtakingly audacious, 2,000-feet, 150-floor, spiraling candy cane Chicago Spire will rise to completion in 2011, dwarfing all that’s gone before, becoming at once North America’s tallest free-standing structure and, with 1,200 über-luxe condos, the world’s tallest all-residential building. It’ll make Uncle Donny and his Trumpettes’ hybrid condo-hotel-teleconference-mall, the new Trump International Hotel & Tower, on the river, look like chopped liver. Sorry, Donald, catch you later. — Grant Thatcher, “Deeply Dishy,” Vanity Fair, April 2008.

I can’t think of a more fitting description of a future address, and home, of Atherton Bartelby.

The Chicago Spire | Exterior rendering, from website.

The Chicago Spire | Interior rendering of “Suite” floor plan, from website.

Filed under: Architecture, Art, Music , a-list, chicago, defining moments, home, humor, interior design, linkage, memories, needful reminders, pimpage, repartee, urban appreciation, video