Concrete infused with fibreglass

Shown at a RIBA exhibition in 2004.
Imagine a building made of this?! The strength and exterior texture of concrete, but a lightness imbued by, well, light itself. At night, with lights on inside, shadowy projections of the inhabitants would be visible moving across the exterior of the building ...

The article suggests the real benefits are likely to be inside the building though. Could the ability for this new concrete to be as transparent, light, and airy as our ubiquitous glass mirrored buildings provide a richer set of textures for the built fabric of our cities?

affordance:
A visual clue to the function of an object.

When does it all become flying feathers, spinning teeth, tumbling fur and skeins of skin in our cutesy deal with des animaux we rub? When they turn our size, or larger, and begin to rapidly and vilely organize themselves better than us - in a communication undecipherably complex and additionally entire outofrange of known human aural frequency; developing in a way that defies intervention. we become nought to them and the memory of kindhearts among humans has long since been canned. This is the time we arrive at the question that posits the clear choice - us or them; eliminating one by one. Survival is the only ideal. Unless its the Kingdom of something else.
(Pic courtesy: Marion Peck)

Design. Architecture. Football.

So I think one reason people find football aesthetically and formally appealing - leaving aside other obvious reasons - is to do with this see-saw balancing act; when the fragile beauty of design can be denied so effortlessly by the combination of chance, improvisation, circumstance and irrational passion. It's the call-and-response tension between these forces that makes the game at the highest level so thrilling. And it's this tension which is reminiscent of adaptive design ideas discussed here previously; that design isn't the end of the process, but the beginning; that interpretation and improvisation will define the end-product, not the original design - in architecture, in music, in football.
***
Reference to Winners' book; Winner describes how Dutch football's pervasive and serious discussion of space and systems is an entirely predictable product of its culture.

Then i have the session with the immediate manager and one of his comments is -
'also I don't see you interacting with the women in the office much; is something wrong'. ahh? i think. where what? you know when some questions are just so stupid, you have nothing to say and i say, 'What can i say? Thats how it turned out.' Also he didnt merit any serious or logical sparring. Some people are so smug in their heat island, i'll just let the rising sea levels do the wetting.

“[ . . . ] the inclination to aggression is an original, self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man, and I return to my view [p.69] that it constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization” (Freud 81)

Me, baby cow, and sister

May I further introduce sis(on right). She's the inspired, assured, brilliant mind I was talking about somewhere sometime. The creator and partner in self-devised imagination-imagination games such as 'Ocean Ocean!' and 'Horse Horse!'. Being slow, quiet, and pathologically voyeuristic, i ensured her role in these games assumed that of manipulator. On the homerange front, she was so plainly and even tactically infallible, she never cried and was never beaten. Our imagination games came to an end when her breasts and periods developed, which made me do everything in my power to block such developments on me. She rerouted her powers to school and topped ruthelessly but masculinely - because it wasnt in the pince-nezed-dontcopy way girls ussually have when topping. She degged and phd in rome and has taken on all the ways of a besotted roman, which is great; the men are a pleasure; and the women are fine.
On the whole, she's still a bitch. And I soon hope to join her in Sudan for her work. We made a deal some time, some time - to make it to the masquerade in Venice some time. we'll make it.

Do poor children become poor adults? Lessons from a cross country comparison

"In the United States almost one half of children born to low income parents become low income adults. This is an extreme case, but the fraction is also high in the United Kingdom at four in ten, and Canada where about one-third of low income children do not escape low income in adulthood. In the Nordic countries, where overall child poverty rates are noticeably lower, it is also the case that a disproportionate fraction of low income children become low income adults. Generational cycles of low income may be common in the rich countries, but so are cycles of high income. Rich children tend to become rich adults. Four in ten children born to high income parents will grow up to be high income adults in the United States and the United Kingdom, and as many as onethird will do so in Canada..."

i'm really record drunk as i write now. but i went to heaven twice in the last 90 minutes watching brazil-aus 2-0. there was something wrong with the belief of truth for at least the first 30 minutes. but the connexion happened each time of the 2. scot pub should be grateful i didnt throw the mug and pitcher and take all customers before clearing bills in a chariot to joop. but i squuealed the loudest and stomped half-jumped at seond goal. should have seen it with dad whos clealry suffering from the deprevation it hurts; maybe i'll work something out. an ani and misch were nice company. misch sustained few injuries from whacks to alternate thighs and single back.
above all - glory glory. i scored.

Had first ever bday party of queer life yesterday. i crossed my toes and was grateful for the invited and cats who came. and Yasss - who hosted like 3 magnanimous hosts. i bow.

Interesting

The notorious sister currently on field in Sudan has requested me to launch on a project to supply books to their rudimentary but aspiring educational setup there. A couple of second hand books of ruddy and inspired quality. Should get starting.
She should be done with her final thesis defence in a few years or decades.
There's a brilliant pic of she and me and me and a tottering cowlet somewhere in kerala ages ago; it should come up here soon. She is the most brilliant mind I've had the pleasure of some time with.

The importance of keeping secrets (even from best friends):

You see that in Shawshank Redemption.

Matches I cannot afford to miss

FRIDAY 16 JUNE
Mexico v Angola

SATURDAY 17 JUNE
Czech Republic v Ghana

SUNDAY 18 JUNE
Brazil v Australia

TUESDAY 20 JUNE
Ecuador v Germany
Costa Rica v Poland
Paraguay v Trinidad & Tob.
Sweden v England

WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE
Portugal v Mexico
Holland v Argentina

THURSDAY 22 JUNE
Czech Republic v Italy
Japan v Brazil
Croatia v Australia

FRIDAY 23 JUNE
Togo v France

With malice towards none. You understand?

Have never caught on to the secret charms and intrigues of brahmin homes whatever the precious rituals smells and sounds they deign to generate, though theyre worth recording. Architecture yes. And textiles. (Music is too complex for this line). But artisans were never this band though they worked on supplied templates. And the far eastern influence in kerala temple archi makes you see how much more depended on the artisans; since they travlled more extensively. As for orthodoxy, nothing pinches like the Keralan Syrian Christian construct. And the only thing to learn from it is to leave it behind, never forget the evil in convolusion-exclusion, and move on to live, grow and maybe love. without bending.

I wonder since ideas of charm like that of beauty are becoming bleakly unitarian,
What is one expected to remember from visits to tribal and dalit homes? The general lack of legacy, history, anointment? What does it mean to be noble, to be horrified at the genteel erosion/decay of a priestly class. Is the decline of a single once-noble brahmin family the direct price for accomodating the rise of the dalit. And the sight of the penurious dalit?; well he began that way anyway. He should be grateful for anything else.

And to that i say 'precious balls'. Lead me home.

Slut of Sankeytank, Deep in Peeve

So S and I decide for the first time try the plebian dip in the big bad public pool of sankey tank. we find theres no space in the one row meant for zee ladies. the row is regularly invaded by male pool sharks who land on this end faking exhaustion obviously taking the female end for succour row. after a head-on collission and handlock with an orange-goggled male, i call him a cow and ask him to decide on his gender. So he breaststrokes himself into the deep end which is just as good. We do the dumb fuck strokes and are whistled out after less than an hour. now heres the part that really gets me wheezing.
We've barely hoisted our slick bods out of the pool when our fatherly (but mallu) ex-coach, sees us heading the long way around the pool to the changingroom. He asks where do we think we're going in our swimsuits when the changingdigs are 3 steps behind us. our bags are on the other end i say and we catwalk. And he cant stop us anyway. What the fuck was that all about - women arent allowed to traipse in the complex in swimsuits? And the men were meant to resplendate in billiard balled glory everywhere. sick shit.
In other news for the heck of driving, went with folks to a Syro-Malabar acreage in Jalahalli village where i watched an aviary with 2 freak doves with feathers on their feet. I mean feathers on their feet so you couldnt see their feet and they walked about and flew and these feathers remained. Dad said maybe they were developing doubledecker wings. And then my brain shifted and I've been feeling strange ever since.

Musicovery

Music for moods - Musicovery - Go straight for metal or classical or whatever you want. Grow.

The Rage to Conclude

Now I want all these books. This time all by one person - Edward Tufte.
This my friends, is how fact books should be. I can see some dusty pedantic and thoroughly dull Indian academic writers simmering at the look and success of these works and the man behind it. Because now their secrets are public play. But to give credit - nothing would have struck them. Just take a look at the chapter titles of Beautiful Evidence:
Mapped Pictures: Images as Evidence and Explanation
Sparklines: Intense, Simple, Word-Sized Graphics
Links and Causal Arrows: Ambiguity in Action
Words, Numbers, Images - Together
The Fundamental Principles of Analytical Design
Corruption in Evidence Presentations: A Consumer's Guide to Effect Without Causes, Cherry Picking, Overreaching, Chartjunk, and the Rage to Conclude
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within
Sculptural Pedestals: Meaning, Practgice, Depedestalization
Landscape Sculptures

Superb Lyrebird makes Attenborough moment

A performance by this flamboyant and superbly talented lyrebird seems to have grabbed the awe of so many to be voted the UK's favourite David Attenborough moment. Watch the proud adorable make a clearing before dishing out some showstopping imitations. brav brav bravvvo boy.

I wanted to start this with a curse, but couldnt find one that anyone would think was mine culturally. I wanted to tell you how things move on and how you've nailed nothing down with a forever. things move on and even a swim begins to pull and a smile is a drain. when i look back and i look here and ahead, there are small circles and rapid repeats. The new job I took up last month, I might drop by the end of this month when I leave for a friend's marriage from which I may not return. i may not even attend the marriage and i'll lean back and say my hit's coming soon and all that will have happened is that I didnt make it come.

And I'll remember all the reasonable people I ever met and maybe being reasonable is the kindest thing you could ever do. And why should I talk of kindness at all? Because I don't think it's shameless to remember childhood like the vulnerability of a young nomadic family in nomans land. Where every stranger's special glint in the eye was the greatest sparkling palace for some scruffy midgets three.

I won't remember the morbid bloats who crossed me out, because theyre all the same, so I'll remember them as one single bollop that doesnt even smell like the gutter, because I've found recently I actually find the smell of the gutter has a special appetizing appeal.

I will remember the birds (happy flitting in the drain) and aphids (on the autodriver's back), and all the dogs dogs dogs recklessly selling love with lambent eyes on narrow streets. Dogs making connections and losing everything again and again for love. not just food.

I might hold on, I might let go.
A little shakily, I might even let you know
(How smart is that?)