on Recognition

I was watching a short film the other day and suddenly got a terrible case of Deja Vu.  I could have sworn I'd seen this particular scene.  A few minutes later the feeling subsided.  Deja Vu is not a prediction, or a memory from a past life.  It's a random misfiring in the memory center of your brain, giving you the sudden feeling of recognition without actual memory connections.  If you think you're suddenly having a psychic moment, try your hardest to predict what is going to happen next.  Once the next thing happens your brain will still trigger the recognition, but you won't be able to predict it.  A string of these recognitions will eventually alert the warning centers of the brain, telling you something ominous or wonderful is about to occur.  This is a defense mechanism scientists are still trying to work out.

Pattern recognition is an ability we are born with.  Babies see the shapes of faces, regardless of orientation (whether the face is upside down, sideways or right side up).  Eventually, before they can really focus, they can recognize their parents' or caregivers' faces from strangers.  Our brains can pick shapes, color, darkness & lightness out of nearly any image and turn it into a face, a body, or anything we can recognize.

Sometimes, if I wake up in the middle of the night and look at one of the pictures on the wall, or the lamp at the bedside, the shape may be common, but my brain can't recognize it.  It may take up to a minute or two for me to finally realize it's just a lamp and not a person standing there.  Sometimes I actually get angry because my brain searches for a reason that the painting on the wall is unrecognizable and comes up with an excuse: obviously that picture has been switched out by my partner.  If I'm still mostly asleep my brain may concoct an entire story about why the picture has been replaced. As I wake up and the picture's details emerge more clearly it will trigger the recognition and I will now remember where it came from and that it is the very same picture hanging on the wall for years.  I imagine this is how Alzheimer's disease feels as those memories disappear and all the familiar things and people no longer trigger recognition.

on TV Beginnings

When I was in High School my friends' family had cable. I was a bit jealous because my family refused to pay for the luxury so we could only get two clearly visible channels, and one fuzzy PBS channel.  My father finally installed a large antenna but in order to bring in the other channels (and those pesky UHF channels, remember those?) one had to turn a large disk and then wait to see if the channel came in as the antenna slowly turned.  Eventually the motor burned out and I became the official antenna-turner.  I'd have to run outside and turn the pole until my father would yell "okay".  This would usually be a seemingly never ending back and forth.

I remember going over to my friends' house (I was friends with all three of the boys, and sort-of friends with the sister and parents) in 1981 to watch for the launch of MTV.  All the screen displayed was a single image which I think said "coming soon", or maybe it was a countdown.  I don't recall that detail, but when the channel finally launched the whole household was ecstatic. Then we were treated to hours and hours of "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.  Eventually the network began airing other music videos hosted by "VJs" like Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, Martha Quinn and J.J. Jackson.


In 1986 I moved to Tualatin, Oregon to be near my new job as an interior designer and store planner for America's largest privately-owned drug store chain (at the time). I had my own apartment for the first time and my own color t.v. set.  Up to that time I had only owned a small black and white set, so I thought ALF was actually blue (until the mom on the show asked "who left all the orange hair in the bathtub?").  TV was filled with the news that FOX would be launching a new television network.  The channel came on line with a small amount of FOX produced shows which would air weeknights.  At other times the channel was blank.

The first show to air was the Late Show with Joan Rivers.  She quit by 1987 and the show was hosted by guests until Arsenio Hall came on. With his popularity he was able to jump to one of the major networks and launch his own late night talk show.

The other programming included Married with Children, America's Most Wanted, and arguably the first reality show Cops.  I always watched the Tracey Ullman show with its irreverent cartoon segments "the Simpson Family".  I fell in love with nearly everyone on 21 Jump Street; I adored little Johnny Depp, but eventually threw him over for the new cast-member bad-boy Richard Greico. I laughed a lot at the New Adventures of Beans Baxter about a teenage or preteen who was a spy and even his parents didn't know. I howled at the show that started with a two-hour movie event called Werewolf, and had a little crush on John J. York.

There was a romantic-comedy show called Duet about a dating couple.  The main characters were only slightly amusing and a bit flat but it was the show's other characters that really stole the show.  There was the kooky secretary played by Ellen Degeneres, and the no-nonsense deadpan Alison LaPlaca, and the ditsy sister played by Jodi Thelan.  These other characters, especially LaPlaca drew the most audience appreciation.  Since this was a new network and they really didn't have a ton of shows being pitched, they were able to sit down and retool this sitcom in order to make it work.  They cancelled Duet and then "spun-off" the show Open House.

Another major retooling happened with a show called Second Chance.  It was about an older man who dies, is sent up to St. Peter, but given a second chance to right all his wrongs.  How?  By moving into an apartment above the garage of his own mother.  This way he can keep (a rather creepy) eye on himself as a teenager.  There were strange moments when his mother tried to put the moves on him, and lots of strange "hanging out" with himself as a teenager.  "Hey mom, the creepy guy renting our spare apartment is trying to have another one-on-one talk with me after leering at me all day while I played basketball in the driveway with my two friends".  This contrived storyline simply didn't work.  However, the boy that played the teenager was Friends' star Matthew Perry who was somehow able to make the series' banal lines impressively funny.  His teen costars were William Gallo who played Francis "Booch" Lottabucci and Demian Slade who was the nerdy Eugene Blooberman. The antics and likability of these three became the center of the newly retooled show called "Boys will be Boys".

on Art and Signs

The Cleveland Storefront Renovation program specifically mentions building signs as one of the items the program money can be used for. The local Community Development Corporations encourage business/building owners to create interesting, artistic signs. This brings up the question: can a sign be art or does it always remain a piece of advertising. Many city and government programs earmarking money for public art do not allow a sign to be considered art.

In some recent architecture blogs and even one architecture history tour of Portland, Oregon mentions the iconic Portland Luggage sign at the corner of SW Fourth Street. Not to burst anyone's bubble, but that particular sign is no more than 15 years old. I should know since I designed it. The original structure of the sign was part of the original bank, and then in the 80's it became a Church of Scientology. The sign towered nearly five stories high, capped with an oblique trim, with a dark blue face and gold open pan-channel letters spelling out the church's long name, vertically. The city codes had changed by the 90's when Portland Luggage purchased the building and began renovations and the old sign could not just have the letters changed out, major revisions were now required to bring it in-line with code.

For starters, the sign face (times two since it is double-sided) was about four times the limit based on the building facade and street frontage. This change would reduce the sign to barely reaching the second floor. Furthermore the code required there to be no more exposed neon, and if the sign is to be illuminated, it could not be seen from over 10 city blocks away. Now this last part of the code was ridiculous since at night the human eye can see light from sources over billions of light years away (called stars). There is no way to create an illuminated sign that can't be seen from the nearby mountains let alone 10 city blocks.

The important part of the design process was to simply not accept the code as written. I had long discussions with the code enforcer who disclosed that if the sign was "compelling enough in design" it could be granted a variance. By adding a metal globe to the top of the sign structure I was able to make the sign about 3 1/2 stories tall and keep the internal illumination. I did have to remove any exposed neon, but I was allowed to shine lights up onto the globe from the canopy below.

So the question could be answered, in this case anyway, that the sign is artistic enough to be considered special. The sign is obviously regarded by the architectural community as an icon, for which I am very proud, but is it art? The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati seems to imply by its very existence that not only are signs a piece of nostalgia and items of advertising, but certainly are objects of art.

Recently I convinced a friend to seek funding from the Store Renovation Program to purchase his business sign, but to pursue a local art grant to hire an artist to manufacture the sign, thereby getting two funding streams for one expense. My fingers are crossed he will be successful in gaining both sets of money and getting a terrific sign and a significate piece of public art.

on Lilith

There are two versions of the creation of man in the Bible (Genesis/Bereshit).  In the first God makes Man and Woman out of clay.  Then a little bit further on Adam tells God he is lonely and so God takes a rib from Adam and makes Eve.  According to many ancient sources (Midrash for one) the first woman, who was created from clay like her mate, felt she was equal and not subservient to Adam.  This woman was called Lilith.  She is credited as Adam's first wife, who had her own mind and either decided to go her own way or was banished from the garden.

Then Eve came along and said, "yes Adam, yes Adam" to everything he said.  Of course without the fortitude of Lilith, Eve easily fell prey to the Devil's machinations and ate of the forbidden fruit.  Because of Lilith's supposed defiance and equality she has been raised up as a symbol of pure feminism, and her name has been adopted for the "Lilith Fair" concert series and has been used widely in Wiccan and other non-Christian religions and organizations.

In some earlier writings Lilith mated with an Archangel named Samael.  Then in later writings she became a seductress and a demoness.  Most of these depict Lilith as a demon sent by the Devil to prey upon young men to defile themselves; in other words the original succubus.

I think it's kind of amazing how much folklore, tales, history, and religious text can evolve from a simple discrepancy in the Bible.

on Cursive

I just read an article in the Times the other day regarding how American schools are no longer teaching cursive handwriting.  The author made two points to bemoan this loss: 1.  how will kids be able to read the original Declaration of Independence, and 2.  how will people sign their names?

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I have always despised cursive.  It is an invention that came about in the mid century to replace an older "archaic" form of handwriting that was supposed to be easier to learn and easier to read.  The concept was to make all handwriting look the same.  Each letter was supposed to be constructed identically by each individual in such a way as to remove anything remotely individual.  This means that even signatures were supposed to be non-individualistic, which of course is a legal problem.  More on this a bit later.

In the seventh grade my science teacher required everyone to take copious notes and then turn in a finished notebook at the end of the term.  My hand would ache and I simply could not keep up. Cursive handwriting was slow and difficult for me to master.  After a few dozen pages, I realized I couldn't read what I had written.  I decided to change my own handwriting.  I sat down and developed a new style of written alphabet full of flourishes and interesting shapes.  Then, after a week or so of honing, the curly-cues and difficult line-work smoothed out.  It was a form of printing with stylized letters.  By forcing myself to write in this new alphabet, and only in this new form, I completely changed the way I wrote from that day forward.  Although my handwriting was eventually reshaped by tedious lettering assignments in Architectural Calligraphy, many of the letter shapes have remained in my day-to-day hand writing.

Back to the article:  The Declaration of Independence is not written in cursive.  It is written in a form of calligraphy where many of the lower case letters are connected to one another but many are not.  It is very readable because most of the letters are simply italicized versions of present-day fonts with obvious exceptions being the letters "s", "r" and the capital "Q".  Even someone who has never once seen these versions of these particular letters can figure out what the document says, just as someone in present day can understand the old word: "Congreff" even though the s's look like lower case f's.  As for the signatures on the document, they are as different from each other as they are from the text itself.

This leads me to the second point of the article, that kids won't learn how to sign their names. A signature is an individual, stylized piece of writing.  If the students learned cursive the way it was meant to be taught, their signatures would, in no way, be individualistic.  I can recognize my own signature in a split second. Yet, my signature is really made up of those stylized printed letters and not cursive. Hand printing is still an individualistic style of writing, regardless of whether or not the letters connect to each other.  The human hand will always make little movements with repetitive use that are markedly individual.

So I say, let this old form of handwriting simply die out and fade away.  It has served it's usefulness and has become passe.  Just as the older forms of writing have passed on, this one should be allowed to disappear.  Sure, we can feel its loss, just as some are complaining about old incandescent light bulbs going away, but we shouldn't cling to it just because it may have had a purpose one time, long ago.  Let it go people.  Let it go.

on Evolution

Score one for science and zero for creationism in Texas.  The Texas Board of Education voted unanimously to reject any creationist supplements to its science curriculum.  This is quite a change for this notoriously "right wing" school board.

Evolution has been coming under attack ever since Darwin (and his predecessors) proposed the concept.  The fight between teaching school children we were created by magic or we were created by a complex biological function seemed to finally come to an end with the Scopes "Monkey" Trial.  Evolution won.

When I was in high school, I saw a film which tried to explain evolution.  The animation presented showed a fish that sprouted legs, walked onto the beech, then became a lizard which eventually turned into a bird.  The animation took about three minutes.  Despite the fact the narrator said this conversion process took millions of years to accomplish, most of the other kids sitting at my table shook their heads and whispered things like, "I don't believe a fish can turn into a lizard", or "I've never seen a fish jump out of the ocean and turn into a bird".  Although the biology teacher was adept at his subject, I really don't think he was ever able to fully explain evolution to these kids.  And I believe he was probably better at it than the majority of teachers out there, which may explain why so little of the population understands the theory today, or even what the word "theory" actually means.

Too much CSI has dumbed down the word "theory", making it something like a shot in the dark or merely a guess.  I'm not over exaggerating the importance of Darwin's theory when I state it is the underpinning of all our understanding of biology.  Evolution is the umbrella process that incorporates "survival of the fittest", "natural selection", and "mutation".  Without those parts, biology is relegated to "it works by magic".

So I celebrate the Texas Board of Education and hope the teachers really teach the theory so that kids can actually learn it and understand it.  Otherwise in a few short years we're going to see more polls showing the American people overwhelmingly believe magic is the best way to explain our origins.  

on Ghettos

When Robert and I, along with our friends Jeff & Corie, visited Venice, I wanted to spend time roaming around the original Ghetto, the very place where the name came from.  It was an enclave of Jewish people who had been compelled to live in a particular area by the Venetian Republic.  I was out of luck however, because it was a Saturday and everything was closed for Shabbat.

Forced segregation is one thing, but many different types of people purposely choose to congregate and live in a particular area.  There is power in numbers, and being surrounded by people who are similar to you can be empowering and safe.

Back in the 1970's, the city of Washington D.C., our nation's capital, was predominately black.  It reached a pinnacle of 71% black just before the 80's came.  One area that was probably closer to 90% is the H Street area.  In recent years the population has shifted and now whites have taken a slight majority at 51%.  H Street is changing.  The lower income levels of the population along the street has made for ripe pickings when it comes to cheap property.  Recently the city tried to pass ordinances for H Street that would ban chicken wings (because they presumably draw rats and choke dogs) and would remove hair salons from future financial development funds.  To most people these two proposed ordinances were racially motivated.

The city has also targeted this area for much development including new sidewalks, decorative street lamps and new street cars.  The increased development meant the existing store owners' property taxes increased dramatically.  Also, many of the property owners were charged "frontage", meaning they had to pay a fee for every foot of property along the street.  These sudden fees and taxes have driven many stores to close.  On the other hand nearly twice as many new stores have cropped up along the burgeoning way.  Some of the older residents are pointing to these new stores and noting the lighter color of the new store owners' skins.  Many older residents bemoan the loss of the familiar neighborhood they grew up in, or raised families in.

It provokes thoughts regarding racism, progress, development, and nostalgia.  Is change always good?  We would typically look at the new sidewalks, storefronts, etcetera and see it as a good thing, as progress.  But what has been lost in order for this progress to be made?

The famous Castro Street in San Francisco has traditionally been home to the LGBT community for decades. I will admit that the sheer freedom I once felt, walking hand in hand down the Castro with Robert, without fear or even any adverse glances, was beyond wonderful. To be surrounded by "people like us", "our own kind" was both emotionally satisfying and thrilling.  Despite the differences in political, historical, even sexual concepts, the LGBT was and is a community and you could never find it more visible than in the Castro, with a possible exception of Greenwich Village in NYC.

As the housing prices climbed along the Castro, many older LGBT residents sold and moved to other locations.  The city of San Francisco has become a welcoming place, without any need for a ghetto.  Gay men and women can walk down most of the city's streets without fear, most of the time.  The beauty of the well kept neighborhood is attractive to families and soon many couples with young children were moving in.  These families were usually very tolerant of their LGBT neighbors, and wanted to raise their children in a very diverse, open and liberal area.  However, the next wave of residents were a bit more conservative.  They were looking for a good, clean neighborhood with many amenities, good schools, and a terrific location for commuting to down town.

Along the Castro, for decades, one could find stores with mannequins in the display windows sporting leather harnesses, chains, clamps, tattoos, mohawks, and any number of other accouterments.  The LGBT community has been marginalized by society for its sexual orientations, and thereby for its sexual "proclivities".  Perhaps as a way to rebel against that marginalization, the community has embraced an "in your face" attitude about sex.  As we gain more and more acceptance within the general public, we no longer have such a dire need to rebel.  These storefronts are beginning to fade away on their own.  However, recently some of the new families moving into the Castro have begun to complain about the displays.  Citing their children's impressionable minds, they have demanded that the stores black out their windows or remove any of the "offending" items.  This is an effort to "clean up" the street and make it even more family friendly.

And that is how the ghettos disappear.  Should we bemoan the loss, or celebrate the progress?