Today we visited a real estate open house (one of my favorite forms of free recreation) at the former jail in the next town. The main building was constructed perhaps in the 1830s, of massive granite blocks. The developers have carved new window openings (oddly placed in the units, generally) out of the walls and the floor-to-floor height is very large, so that smallish rooms have tall ceilings, like 12-15 feet tall.
The challenge must have been (hello, capitalism!) to maximize the number of 2-BR units. It's cleverly done in a developer sense, but not so clever in terms of the feel of the spaces. I am pretty sure that the people who laid out the units have no sense of the spatial quality of the rooms thus created. It was a plan-puzzle exercise rather than a 3D spatial exercise. But it must be very costly to gut the interior and build these units so I can't say I blame them for trying to maximize return-on-investment.
Some of the building was still open to studs (their insurance co must have been unaware of the open house) and I have to say that the construction sequencing was puzzling. They are at sheetrock and skim-coat in many places where they still haven't sandblasted the exposed brick walls. Shouldn't they have done all that prep work first??
But anyways, an interesting afternoon, and Mom came with us and found it interesting too, so a good day all around.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
heart of empire
We've been back from London (spring break tour with about 85 people from our respective institutions) for about a week, and London already just seems forever ago.
If I had to sum up my impressions of the week, it would be in this: "Empire abides." My point of view is a bit slanted, sure - but in all the museums and sights, the sense of trade and growth and more trade and global connections was just so strong. Of course it's a major narrative point of the museums and the economy - and has long been, but I wonder if the average Londoner feels that too?
Back at the day job, we are at the point in the semester when all the problem-people finally come out of hiding and begin to negotiate for their fate. Should someone be allowed to continue in the course when they haven't attended since early February? So many students seem to think that personal tragedy ENTITLES them to special consideration. I don't mean to be harsh - but I really don't buy it. If you just do the readings and the assignments and tests and never come to class, is that an acceptable substitute for contributing to the classroom community?
In my grading schemes, about 25% of the final grade is based on doing the in-class work and on class participation. I suppose that even if I allow these tragic souls (their stories are the stuff of Lifetime movies) to carry on, they are unlikely to pass - which represents a cruelty of a different sort on my part - better to cut their losses while they can, in my opinion. They never see it - youth is so optimistic.
If I had to sum up my impressions of the week, it would be in this: "Empire abides." My point of view is a bit slanted, sure - but in all the museums and sights, the sense of trade and growth and more trade and global connections was just so strong. Of course it's a major narrative point of the museums and the economy - and has long been, but I wonder if the average Londoner feels that too?
Back at the day job, we are at the point in the semester when all the problem-people finally come out of hiding and begin to negotiate for their fate. Should someone be allowed to continue in the course when they haven't attended since early February? So many students seem to think that personal tragedy ENTITLES them to special consideration. I don't mean to be harsh - but I really don't buy it. If you just do the readings and the assignments and tests and never come to class, is that an acceptable substitute for contributing to the classroom community?
In my grading schemes, about 25% of the final grade is based on doing the in-class work and on class participation. I suppose that even if I allow these tragic souls (their stories are the stuff of Lifetime movies) to carry on, they are unlikely to pass - which represents a cruelty of a different sort on my part - better to cut their losses while they can, in my opinion. They never see it - youth is so optimistic.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
news part 2
The more cheery part of what all happened last week, is that I GOT MY FULLBRIGHT GRANT!!!
Nach Berlin, baby! I will be there from June 9-19 and longer if/when B and I can arrange the schedule. I will be in seminar (classes?) for about a week and then hopefully can arrange to do some traveling/researching in support of my book project.
So much to arrange! But so exciting! I have a sheaf of A4 paper (their size is different than 8.5x11) on my desk with all the forms and whatnot that I have to sign - UPS'ed to me from Germany!
Nach Berlin, baby! I will be there from June 9-19 and longer if/when B and I can arrange the schedule. I will be in seminar (classes?) for about a week and then hopefully can arrange to do some traveling/researching in support of my book project.
So much to arrange! But so exciting! I have a sheaf of A4 paper (their size is different than 8.5x11) on my desk with all the forms and whatnot that I have to sign - UPS'ed to me from Germany!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
a newsworthy week
First off, my uncle died last Sunday, 2/21. He was 87, and had been in a nursing home situation since July when he had fallen and broken his back. My parents saw him in November and reported that he was alert and responsive, but my aunt and cousin have both said that he had significant mental losses and although he could recognize voices on the phone, he just "wasn't totally there."
(Heartbreaking: when I greeted my aunt this morning in church and murmured my condolences, she said, "Don't be sorry. I'm SOOO jealous of him: now he is with P. in heaven and can talk to her" (my cousin, who died of cancer about 2 years ago).)
Well, B and I sat through an aggressively activist mass and then we deconstructed the texts afterwards. (Foucault would be proud.) This church (which my grandparents helped to found in the 1950s) has always been socially responsive at all scales - to the homeless in Cambridge; to the sick and dying of the members; to responsible eating (there was to be a CSA session at the social hour following) to the current crises in Haiti and Chile. I am sort of ok with that - active involvement in the world rather than spiritual navel-gazing. But the texts du jour were so militant that it was shocking. The covenant with Abraham: Israel "should extend" from the Nile to the Euphrates (look it up: Genesis, I think ch 15); all the battles and fighting and killing.
We were appalled. I began the day thinking that I believed in God (although organized religion mostly pisses me off) and shortly thereafter that I could not believe in any deity whose "might" would intentionally kill thousands through "natural" disasters. Oh, it was just a rhetorical horror-show. Much more thinking about this is needed....
(Heartbreaking: when I greeted my aunt this morning in church and murmured my condolences, she said, "Don't be sorry. I'm SOOO jealous of him: now he is with P. in heaven and can talk to her" (my cousin, who died of cancer about 2 years ago).)
Well, B and I sat through an aggressively activist mass and then we deconstructed the texts afterwards. (Foucault would be proud.) This church (which my grandparents helped to found in the 1950s) has always been socially responsive at all scales - to the homeless in Cambridge; to the sick and dying of the members; to responsible eating (there was to be a CSA session at the social hour following) to the current crises in Haiti and Chile. I am sort of ok with that - active involvement in the world rather than spiritual navel-gazing. But the texts du jour were so militant that it was shocking. The covenant with Abraham: Israel "should extend" from the Nile to the Euphrates (look it up: Genesis, I think ch 15); all the battles and fighting and killing.
We were appalled. I began the day thinking that I believed in God (although organized religion mostly pisses me off) and shortly thereafter that I could not believe in any deity whose "might" would intentionally kill thousands through "natural" disasters. Oh, it was just a rhetorical horror-show. Much more thinking about this is needed....
Sunday, February 14, 2010
generalization versus particularity
I am working on class notes for two sessions on planning and zoning law (one of my favorites, and one that I know a lot about, so the question is always, what must I cut?) and all of a sudden a memory of my grad school frustration (design school) with certain classes came into view.
Our professors would NEVER tell us anything about usual practice or rules of thumb in actual construction, and it made us nuts. How many inches of gravel (or is crushed stone preferred?) under a brick walk, we'd ask. "Well, it depends on the situation," they'd say. I began to think that they really didn't know - that they were so far removed from actual bricks and mortar that they really weren't able to tell us.
Now I am feeling a bit the same way - I am starting my Wed class with a broad philosophical discussion of the concept of property. I want to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of zoning in contemporary thinking about land use, not how to measure a front setback. Yet there might be real value in locating the general into specific practice, through some exercises.
Such exercises feel a bit too easy for me - but if there sadly is one thing I have learned about teaching at state college, it's this: what seems like a 6th grade exercise to me is usually a challenge for at least 1/3 of my class. (This was borne out by my fall classroom evaluation, by the way, in which the evaluator opined that I went too fast, tried to cover too much, and didn't give students the context (he meant indoctrination into the "correct" way of thinking, actually) to make the proper value judgments about the topics.)
Our professors would NEVER tell us anything about usual practice or rules of thumb in actual construction, and it made us nuts. How many inches of gravel (or is crushed stone preferred?) under a brick walk, we'd ask. "Well, it depends on the situation," they'd say. I began to think that they really didn't know - that they were so far removed from actual bricks and mortar that they really weren't able to tell us.
Now I am feeling a bit the same way - I am starting my Wed class with a broad philosophical discussion of the concept of property. I want to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of zoning in contemporary thinking about land use, not how to measure a front setback. Yet there might be real value in locating the general into specific practice, through some exercises.
Such exercises feel a bit too easy for me - but if there sadly is one thing I have learned about teaching at state college, it's this: what seems like a 6th grade exercise to me is usually a challenge for at least 1/3 of my class. (This was borne out by my fall classroom evaluation, by the way, in which the evaluator opined that I went too fast, tried to cover too much, and didn't give students the context (he meant indoctrination into the "correct" way of thinking, actually) to make the proper value judgments about the topics.)
Friday, February 12, 2010
workers of the world untie
Well, I've been sick nigh on two weeks now, but am finally on a variety of medications to clear up what is apparently a collateral-damage sinus infection.
In addition to revising lecture notes every day as I try to manage my ever-changing course schedules (lost 2 class days this week AND a snow day) I've been trying to do some reading for The Book.
First up: an archival look at Moscow's proletariat in the 1918-1929 period. I had had the picture of enormous intellectual and social ferment in the 1920s, most of which of course comes from an architectural history lens. Constructivism, the influence of the International Style - real excitment about making new forms for new ways of living.
Yet my most recent reading paints a different picture: for the masses, Moscow (and the other Russian cities) was hell on earth - low wages, famine approaching starvation, no fuel for heating and transport, tremendous shortages of housing. Crime, prostitution, drug use. And the parallel universe of a limited market economy that the overlords deemed necessary to ease the transition to pure socialism. So while you were starving, you could see your merchant neighbor digging into a juicy roast in a spacious, overheated apartment.
It's a bit peripheral to the larger story of how a political system imposes order - yet some really useful bits.
In addition to revising lecture notes every day as I try to manage my ever-changing course schedules (lost 2 class days this week AND a snow day) I've been trying to do some reading for The Book.
First up: an archival look at Moscow's proletariat in the 1918-1929 period. I had had the picture of enormous intellectual and social ferment in the 1920s, most of which of course comes from an architectural history lens. Constructivism, the influence of the International Style - real excitment about making new forms for new ways of living.
Yet my most recent reading paints a different picture: for the masses, Moscow (and the other Russian cities) was hell on earth - low wages, famine approaching starvation, no fuel for heating and transport, tremendous shortages of housing. Crime, prostitution, drug use. And the parallel universe of a limited market economy that the overlords deemed necessary to ease the transition to pure socialism. So while you were starving, you could see your merchant neighbor digging into a juicy roast in a spacious, overheated apartment.
It's a bit peripheral to the larger story of how a political system imposes order - yet some really useful bits.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
pictures from the past
My father's aunt (his father's youngest brother's wife) died last week, the last of that generation. My dad's cousins sent a giant envelope full of family photos and we looked over them last night. They were mostly taken by my grandparents, and many are annotated on the back.
A poignant touch - my grandmother labels herself simply as "Fatty" in some of the ones that include her. (I guess I come by self-deprecation and body image issues honestly enough, then.)
My grandfather was one of eight children, fairly spread out in age, and my father doesn't really know or keep up with his cousins much. This makes the photos all the more delightful - that they took the time to sort and send them. One of my favorite ones (unlabeled) was what I think is my grandfather's whole family. I recognize his father, whose portrait hangs over my bureau, but I can't tell which of the boys is my grandfather. Plus, there are only seven kids, so I don't know if the portrait was taken after one of the oldest boys had died, or whether Uncle F. hadn't yet been born. Unfortunately, I don't think Dad's eyesight is good enough to sort it all out - the photos are small and faded.
Aunt G. was 94, so that's Dad's new benchmark. His mother was 94 or 95 when she died. We kidded him a little - "Seven more years!" He professes not to want that much time, and he talked last week about funeral plans, so obviously this topic is something he's thinking about a lot.
A poignant touch - my grandmother labels herself simply as "Fatty" in some of the ones that include her. (I guess I come by self-deprecation and body image issues honestly enough, then.)
My grandfather was one of eight children, fairly spread out in age, and my father doesn't really know or keep up with his cousins much. This makes the photos all the more delightful - that they took the time to sort and send them. One of my favorite ones (unlabeled) was what I think is my grandfather's whole family. I recognize his father, whose portrait hangs over my bureau, but I can't tell which of the boys is my grandfather. Plus, there are only seven kids, so I don't know if the portrait was taken after one of the oldest boys had died, or whether Uncle F. hadn't yet been born. Unfortunately, I don't think Dad's eyesight is good enough to sort it all out - the photos are small and faded.
Aunt G. was 94, so that's Dad's new benchmark. His mother was 94 or 95 when she died. We kidded him a little - "Seven more years!" He professes not to want that much time, and he talked last week about funeral plans, so obviously this topic is something he's thinking about a lot.
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