A little Sunday morning randomness for your pleasure (and because for two of these items I need to save the links):
MSNBC has a nice slide show up on the long forgotten Clark fortune. So that's where that wing of the Corcoran comes from!
Someone else's long forgotten fortune has appreciated nicely: Woman Tried for Failure to Report Treasure
Vancouver is over, next up Sochi. "Develop a good thick skin and don't shy away from criticism," said spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade (to the Russians), "because it's healthy and it makes you better at what you do." There is a slight absurdist vein to Russia receiving this advice. In the same vein - Sochi was established as a summer resort under Joseph Stalin. Thank You Stalin! Sochi 2014
A different sort of survival of the fittest: a fascinating article in the London Review of Books on psychological Darwinism
But the world is not all tooth and claw: The Goring celebrates its 100th anniversary. I have never stayed here, but it is the nicest place in London for tea. Big deep chairs, fireplace. I thought it was sort of démodé. It is a little disappointing to learn that it is not.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Alternate Love Stories for Valentines Day
Lorna's Silence
Just Another Love Story
Let the Right One In
Just Another Love Story
Let the Right One In
Monday, February 8, 2010
Snow!
We were not supposed to get snow. Do you know how often Arkansas gets snow even when it is forecast? Almost never! Do you know how often Arkansas gets snow when it is not forcast? Never! And yet...
Snow!
I can finally wear my furry Russian hat!!
Snow!
I can finally wear my furry Russian hat!!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Back From the City
But if New York is a city, what is Little Rock? Clearly not the same type of city. In fact, is Little Rock a city at all?
Nope, I'll say for argument. Little Rock is a lovely place, spread along a river and up into the foothills of the Ozarks, but why call it a "city?" Like half the nation, it is a distended realm of housing and businesses, like a paved prairie for living, and with this distinct shift in the urban environment of the country should come a name to acknowledge the modern feat. Little Rock is not some ancient collection of resources gathered within walls or some honeycomb of culture concentrated within easy distance of inhabitants. "City" is just the name of the government. Once you have traveled far enough away from one government to run into another one, voila!, you've switched "cities." Efforts to revitalize downtown centers the country over are a testament to the fact that most cities are no longer "cities" and are trying to reinvent the lost image of self in the shell of a pre-car downtown root. Nothing wrong with that. But there is the danger of costly boondoggles while trying to get people to live in ways that modern society outgrew (trolleys?). Why not just rename our spaces a title more suggestive of what we are and what we have invented? Maybe thinking of where we live as "cities" is what causes some of the hang-ups with planning because the conceptions are all wrong, old old images that don't apply. Maybe we should name the realms something new and get busy landscaping.
Nope, I'll say for argument. Little Rock is a lovely place, spread along a river and up into the foothills of the Ozarks, but why call it a "city?" Like half the nation, it is a distended realm of housing and businesses, like a paved prairie for living, and with this distinct shift in the urban environment of the country should come a name to acknowledge the modern feat. Little Rock is not some ancient collection of resources gathered within walls or some honeycomb of culture concentrated within easy distance of inhabitants. "City" is just the name of the government. Once you have traveled far enough away from one government to run into another one, voila!, you've switched "cities." Efforts to revitalize downtown centers the country over are a testament to the fact that most cities are no longer "cities" and are trying to reinvent the lost image of self in the shell of a pre-car downtown root. Nothing wrong with that. But there is the danger of costly boondoggles while trying to get people to live in ways that modern society outgrew (trolleys?). Why not just rename our spaces a title more suggestive of what we are and what we have invented? Maybe thinking of where we live as "cities" is what causes some of the hang-ups with planning because the conceptions are all wrong, old old images that don't apply. Maybe we should name the realms something new and get busy landscaping.
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