Weekend Review

And now for the weekend update…

Friday-

After an exhausting week…filled with way too much work besides school…I traveled up to Wake Forest for my first ever Drag Queen Show.  I can’t say that I would have gone under normal circumstances, but since it was to support the mostest awesomest person in the entire world - of course I couldn’t turn that opportunity down.  I was most impressed with the event, however.  I don’t know why, but doing stereotypical gay things are just not situations that I seek to place myself in.  If given the option to go to a straight club or a gay one, I would most definitely pick the straight club.  Shock is good for everyone though… not that I was in shock… it’s just good to step outside the box occasionally… to do something most untypical of yourself.  Sometimes you even find that you enjoy the things that you think you might otherwise not.

The show itself was great.  Apparently there were Queens from all over the state, some of them from Charlotte… and they were the top.  Performances ranged from Celine Dion, to Cher, to Reba… haha!  Costumes, in my opinion… Cher was tops.  But what gay guy doesn’t like Cher???

Saturday-

For the most part was really awkward.  I had planned all week on going to a birthday party for Suzanne.  She’d made special steps to only invite Kiffin and I to the party because for the most part it was a family event.  I called to find out what time the party was, but never heard back from Suzanne.  I’ve tried calling Kiffin’s cell all weekend and my phone just cuts off.  Hopefully I’ll figure out what’s going on today in studio when I go for the 1pm meeting… that I’m pretty excited about actually… (LOL… right Cathy?).  

Other than that I did a lot of reading for my Urban Theories class.  This class I’m still undecided on.  We are reading a lot about market effects dealing with urban planning – translation: it’s a lot of boring shit about stuff I’m totally uninterested in.  I understand the need for such investigation I suppose, but I don’t think it so much belongs in a theory class.  We should be investigating past-present social issues in my opinion – how space affects the way that people function in society… how we have changed the space we set aside for the public in the past 100 years and make comparisons with other countries.  One point I brought up in class the other day deals with the theories behind comprehensive planning.  Comprehensive planning doesn’t seem to hold a leg in today’s economy in my opinion.  The idea of putting a plan out there for a city to follow for the next 20-30-50 years seems preposterous.  The way that technology changes make it pointless, besides that fact that population prediction and such are merely that (PREDICTIONS!!!).

It is my opinion that Master Plans should be most general but strictly enforced.  They should discuss things like how to acquire general green space, the amount of new property for residential, office, etc, public transportation issues, etc.  Ultimately the city is only going to invest money in these things when it’s available.  Furthermore, theories change!  What we practice today is basically traditional planning theories developed in Europe, which oddly enough is now being called ‘NEW’ Urbanism.  They set standards and zoning regulations that place buildings on the street edge instead of allowing parking lots to dominate the areas adjacent to the road.

Basically, when automobiles took over the word, the pedestrian lost the battle.  Instead of building for people, we built for the car.  We design buildings that can be seen from the highway and signage that can be read while traveling at 70mph.  We lost all attention to how people react with building, place, and space.  We are now realizing that we messed up, and to fix it, we are going back to previous generations of planning and calling it new.  I’m not certain that this is an appropriate answer.  People are not the same.  We don’t act the same in society.  I think this directly is a response to the types of spaces that have been built since the automobile.  If you go to Europe for instance, the social context there is dramatically different.  People actually interact with one another.  I’ve never been, but that’s why people enjoy going to these cites.

Technology has changed the way that we function in society.  Cell phones, iPods, portable handheld computers… all of these devices that we have invented to give us complete access to the world at any moment in time, ultimately are reducing how we interact with the world.  Going back to traditional planning I don’t feel is a mistake for the time being.  I do question the field’s apparent apathetic approach.  We should be constructing our ideas in a new way, one that reflects the here and now.

This is also my argument in architecture.  WE SHOULD NOT BUILD A HOUSE TO LOOK AS THOUGH IT WAS BUILT 100 YEARS AGO!  And you society idiots that tell us Architects how we should do our job – well, you should all just die!  LOL!  Just imagine for a second going to the doctors office and telling the doctor, “No, please don’t use the most up-to-date technology in performing my operation.  I’d must rather you use traditional forms of medicine practiced 100 years ago.”  That simply wouldn’t happen.  Architecture should be the same.  You are coming to us for our services, our understandings of the world.  The building materials and technology offered to us are our surgical tools to assemble in meaningful ways such that you might perceive or understand the world in ways you had never thought about before.

Wow… that became a long little sidetrack.

Sunday-

After sleeping in : ) all morning, I finally made myself get out and do something errands that I’d needed to do all last week.  Then I went and hung out with some friends on campus and finally ended up at Kate’s.  We went to Northlake and spent some money… got some beverages to engage in super bowl activities … and spiced up the night a bit.  LOL!  I must say Kate and I do have a way of making for an interesting evening.  I also had a wonderful conversation on the computer with Will last night.  I think we both let go of some things we’d wanted to say.  It was so awesome.  

Monday-
After returning to my place at 5am… I showered and headed to Lake Norman to drop off the car and have it repaired from the accident.  They anticipate 5 days in the shop… and the loaner… non other than a PT Cruiser.  LOL.  I made it to work a little before 9… traffic coming from the Huntersville and Lake Norman exits is insane in the mornings.  And so now I sit here at the desk preparing for another week of Jenkins Peer and school.

Let the games begin…