terra non firma

monday media

I actually am able to get it together enough on a monday to post. miracles do happen.

• we're fatties. evidence to the contrary (at least based on the hike I took on packed trails in griffith park yesterday), LA is the third fattest city in the country. men's health reports on the 25 fattest and fittest city, and we're just behind corpulent chicago and rotund las vegas. fittest? baltimore and its deep fried crab cakes.
• the nytimes gets amped for the 10th International Architecture Exhibition for the Venice Biennale. the times profiles richard burdett, who organized the biennale and is a professor at one of my alma maters, LSE. he's racking up his frequent flier miles as he visits the 18 cities in the biennale, including Shanghai, São Paulo, Beirut, Copenhagen, Bogotá, Johannesburg and Caracas. the times ponders the future of the city (altho only superficially) but its a nice little piece on the future biennale.
• LA2LA: what works. louisiana's advocate discusses the relationship between rebuilding in new orleans and LA's development - and how to avoid the same mistakes, particularly in terms of how capitulating to special interests hurts urban development long term. LA is held up as the model of what doesn't work: sprawl, automotive dependency, urban planning (if it can be called that) that has been primarily managed by special interests without community input.

and I can't really post without mentioning how completely awesome 24 was last night, especially the first 10 minutes. best line of the evening (to his girlfriend's surly teenage son): "the only reason you're still conscious right now is because I dont feel like carrying you."

posted by marissa @ 10:29 AM