We exchanged cards…
It was a pleasure to meet you at the Black Card Circle Foundation event last night. You had a lot of ideas, a lot of concepts, a lot of things you would like to see happen. I so enjoyed your company for that reason. So now, now that we’ve had a night to think about things: Lets make something happen.
Chocolate
I went to a club, because I have a friend who’s a DJ. He was playing, and he played quite well if you ask me. I went to this club and I wore a big jacket, and in one of my pockets I had forgotten a large bar of chocolate.
Milk chocolate from Belgium, with big almonds– a whole pound of it. I had eaten half of it over the span of two days because I’m addicted.
As I was dancing about in this big club with serious bouncers glaring, and happily drunk people dancing, I felt in my pocket this big bar of chocolate. I pulled it out and put a piece in my mouth and let it melt onto my tongue. And then I gave the rest away. I met strangers, and offered them chocolate– and they would ask if I had poisoned it, or if it would fuck them up. But no, why would I waste good poison or drugs on strangers? I’d take a piece out for myself and let it dissolve in my mouth and say “See, I’m not dead.” Then they would take the chocolate for themselves and eat it. It was beautiful. Sharing is fun.
Pictured Thoughts
Thoughts on the city: “People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subway.” EXCEPT when the the conductor comes on the intercom and says “This train is going express!” The train moans because we’re being taken, by force, miles away from wherever we were planning on going– anarchism, in that moment, seems feasible.
Thoughts on weather: “And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” But.. if you’re stuck in an airplane while it makes an emergency re-fuel in Utah it’s hard to enjoy any rainbows.
Thoughts on colour: “Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.” And in Boston the birds fly, for their lives, southward while the trees get naked in a truly colourful fashion.
Harvard School of Design
In my seemingly never-ending quest to find an educational institution that can feed my creative spirit I found myself cruising the Harvard campus and asking the pertinent questions: Do I actually have to go to classes? Do I have to take tests? Can I spend time with professors and ask them loads of questions? Am I allowed to branch off and explore? Is it okay if I don’t have a direction, a discipline, or expectation of an outcome, can I just play and learn on my own with a bit of guidance? Can I do it without having to take out an inordinate amount of student loans?
The answer was almost unanimously “No.” Harvard seems to give its students two options: 1. academic rigor in an almost stereotypical fashion, professors breeding other little professors to run around and preach their teachings. –or– 2. You will be a lawyer, doctor, dentist, or politician. Do not mix, match, or get interdisciplinary. That’s illegal.
So me, the English/art/engineer (englartineer), who couldn’t pick a direction to save his life, was out of luck. Save for a little gem I stumbled upon.
As I tromped through the Harvard school of design I spotted a blazer clad individual who looked much like a professor would look which meant the question needed to be posed: “Where is the admissions office?” because I couldn’t find it in me to ask my real question. He directed me accordingly, and then I didn’t go. I sort of ambled about and stuck my nose in the architectural models that rose up from tables– miniature buildings that inspired me to re-enact Godzilla and destroydestroydestroy.
He asked me a few minutes later as I caught his eye again, “did you find it.” To which I responded, “No, that wasn’t actually what I was looking for.”
“Then what we’re you looking for?”
“I’m looking for a professor, would you happen to know of any? You look like you know a few.”
And as he smiled at me our rapport continued on. We talked about design, he took me around and showed me the models. He explained to me why they worked or didn’t, why they were magnificent or where they needed some guidance. To me they all looked astonishingly complex and hard to make, which I could appreciate.
I’m paraphrasing here and quoting horribly: “You know fashion designers that make those clothes that are wild and garish? Bows, feathers, plastic, wild stuff? We do that here– it’s the cutting edge. And then someone more realistic comes along and takes our ideas, and makes them feasible. Like shoulder pads, when they first appeared on the runway they were gigantic bulging things, but soon they were everywhere– smaller and simpler of course. We do that, we make the future.”
And then he whisked me up the stairs to meet the students. We stopped by cubicles, and he narrated: “You see the tension in this one?” he picked up a small piece of folded mesh cube “It’s a-symmetrical, isn’t that wonderful?” I made the not-so-brilliant decision to think aloud, “it looks like the letter “A.” I could see a whole alphabet of buildings coming from this.” To which I envisioned the next generation of corporate campus’ being built to spell out things to passing airplanes. Imagine the Japanese creating industrial complexes in haiku… Genius. Unfortunately, the student whos work was being investigated did not look particularly pleased with the notion that she had just re-envisioned letters. I guess I couldn’t blame her, only Andy Warhol could be content with reducing his vision to alphabet soup.
He stopped in front of some students and handed me off, “ask them, they’ll tell you what the design program is like.” They all perked up and smiled at me, then started pelting me with questions. “Are you his nephew or something?”
“Who?”
“Preston Scott Cohen, the guy you were with.”
“Nope, no relation, what’s his story?”
Apparently I had just been given a guided tour of the design school by the chair of the Harvard architecture department. And who would have thought! He was so down to earth!! The students let me take some photos, and they really couldn’t chat much. They spend 12+ hours a day getting down and dirty with CAD and laser-cut paper models that are meticulously hand assembled hours/minutes/seconds before they are due. It was 8 o’clock at night and the place was packed, intense. Quite a place, quite an experience.
I don’t think Harvard, or architecture, or the both of them together is right for me. But I do think I’m getting a clearer idea of what I’m looking for. I like people, I like to know what they are doing and how they do it. I like meeting a person who can show me worlds that I’ve never seen before. I have this one life to experience as much as I can, perhaps the best way to make the best of it is to join others in their experiences, to see the world how they see it for a brief moment.
Preston Scott Cohen said he knew he wanted to be an architect from age five. At age five the only thing I was almost positive about was that playdough was not particularly suited for human consumption. He’s accomplished in a number of ways, and all I want to do is grab a lunch with him and pick his brain, take some photos, and write a story about how he sees and experiences the world around him.
Exploring the passions of others just might be something I’m passionate about, we’ll see how far that takes me.
