I have to brag
I barely blog here anymore and when I finally do, its to brag. shame on me. but while this week has been somewhat horrific work-wise, (and I will post some of that story to curbed because its real estate related), and the gods of technology have seen fit to punish me multiple times (goodbye 5 years of email!), the gods of free stuff have been kind.
first,
hilary offered to take me with her to the dodgers game next week against the mets. my hometown team. I grew up about 10 min from shea, yet my allegiance is to the yankees. my first few baseball games, though, were all mets games. the '86 world series still looms large in my childhood memories.
then, OP discovered how to get free tickets to the
groove armada show at the
standard downtown on tues and we were able to snag a few.
and finally, while not free, highly coveted:
reservations at osteria mozza for next week.
eater was able to get thru the always-busy reservation line and get a table for two. and I barely had to threaten, cajole and beg to be her plus one. suck on that, batali.
and just to tie this into the LA arch theme of this blog - I'm docenting this sat at the
schindler house from 11am until 2ish.
best goatse yet
Originally uploaded by tradica
habitat 825 - almost done
the latest pics of lorcan o'herlihy's habitat 825. its been a while since I've posted but you can see the entire flickr photoset
here.
the facade is looking pretty good, right?
but the side adjacent to the schindler house - well, that's a different story.
paris hilton doesn't shop here
just one of the reasons I like culver city.
waaaay too long
I can't believe I haven't updated this blog for a month. how does that happen? I've been pretty active on curbed, but this poor blog has been neglected. so what has been going on?
in the past month have been to san francisco, boston, and am now in ny, having left LA the day the griffith park fires erupted. its been years since I had been to SF and I forgot how much I like that city. I could never live in a city that requires so much walking uphill and is so unfriendly to heels, but I still love it. I stayed near the moscone center and union square in a charming, very small hotel called the
mosser. I found it online and had never been, but it was a very good refurb of an old victorian building. and in just 3 days I managed to make my way over to the mission/potrero hill for an npr
interview, to china basin for some meetings, and to japantown for
omakase. final verdict: LA has SF's sushi beat. perhaps its unfair to judge by one restaurant, but I still have yet to find sushi outside LA that is even on par with your typical strip mall joint in LA.
and boston. more specifically, I was in cambridge for a
conference. it felt very much like london. it was april but drizzling and cold and cambridge has an interesting
mix of mainly industrial architecture, with a touch of the collegiate. I spent most of my time on the MIT campus, which is a bit soulless. I didn't get over to the crazy Frank Gehry
Stata Center, regrettably. but my hotel was just a hop skip and a jump from Steven Holl's
Simmons Hall, a building apparently inspired by a bath sponge. and possible a prison. in space? of course, it
photographs well, but just looked so completely out of context as it sits forlornly overlooking a soccer field, surrounded by...nothing.
image from flickr cityofsoundand new york. now I'm in ny and was able to proudly watch my little sister receive her MD last week. so this past week has mostly been consumed by family, and hasn't left much time for other stuff. unfortunately, the cooper hewitt has the same
exhibition they had the last time I was in town, so my sister and I will need to find an alternative to our usual musuem excursion. tomorrow, however, lunch is at
lupa with LA
friends who are kindly making an exception to their "no socializing with LA friends while in NY rule." its the power of batali to bring people together.
habitat 825 - belated update
ok, so I took these pictures of habitat 825 over a month ago, but finally got around to uploading them to flickr and even creating a
set, so you can see the construction progress over the last 2 years. the condos should be ready for occupancy by may 31st. it seems like they were just breaking ground yesterday. ah, memories.
Labels: habitat 825, kings road, lorcan o'herlihy, west hollywood
salk institute
I finally got around to uploading my photos from my new digital camera to flickr. so I can finally post some photos from my unsuccessful attempt to visit the
salk institute. behold! the exterior only.
Labels: architecture, la jolla, louis kahn, salk institute
random bits
its been way too long since I've posted here. and yet my traffic seems to be rising prodigiously, mostly due to international traffic. so welcome, all my non-American readers. yet I will still try to keep this focused on LA as much as I can. so what's new?
- going to CA Boom 4 this weekend. the organizers have very kindly offered curbed LA press passes again this year. last year I skipped most of the home tours and the party. this year josh and I are going to both the party and some tours on sunday, as well as the show itself. will be bringing my new digital cam to take some pix for the site, and hopefully will post a few here as well.
- went to a panel discussion and performance by ozomatli on tuesday, as a guest of the lear center. (this is my week of free stuff apparently). I mention that here because most of the discussion related to the impact of los angeles, and their sense of place, on their music. while I wish they were slightly more articulate about the band's relationship to this city, the way they recombine and fuse diverse musical influences, and the role a band can play in the fight for social justice, ultimately I have to remember, they're musicians. they're already worlds ahead of the pablum most mainstream musicians spew. they're closer in spirit to musicians turned politicians like gilberto gil than to musicians turned messiah like Bono. and they put on a great show at usc.
- first resolution of 2007 is completed: I am now fully caught up in Battlestar Galactica. I was a little underwhelmed by the first season after all the hype, but seasons 2 and 3 really drew me in. its the smartest show on TV right now. now I am spending my time evangelizing BSG to john, who seems to believe allegory is somehow less important, less capable of eliciting genuine emotional responses than watching CNN. he's so misguided.
- I just booked some travel in april for a couple of conferences I'm speaking at: adtech in SF and the media in transition conference in MIT (those MIT kids are so smart! the conference initials and the school are the same). I left the travel plans for almost last min so I was forced to look for a nearby hotel in SF that was reasonably priced and I'm actually kind of pleased with my find: the mosser. granted, I haven't been there yet but its a 1913 victorian building that's recently been renovated so it looks like an interesting fusion on modern and victorian touches. and I can also pat myself on the back for another reason: The Mosser family donates a portion of hotel proceeds to their non-profit dedicated to the reforestation of the rain forest. its been literally years since I've been to SF, so I'm looking forward to the trip.
- and finally, curbed LA is running its Ugliest Building in LA contest. Its a contest born from josh's twisted head one random monday when our comments seemed low. apparently necessity and low comments are the mother of invention. but the submissions are starting to come in fast and furious now - everyone has a favorite most-hated building. our judges are christopher hawthorne from the latimes, lorcan o'herlihy, alissa walker from unbeige, and ryan from losanjealous . judging begins next week - can't wait.
<
