Personal posts
Posts on architecture, obsessions, photography, poems, visits to art exhibits, essays, family, and or things about me organized under art, home, and work.
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Blarney Castle and the Concept of Touring Houses
Blarney Castle was flat wonderful. It was odd to get the real feeling of passing through someone’s home long after they are gone. The family room was epic. Here’s some video of it: It was great to go through the dungeon as far as we could and then come back. We kissed the Blarney Stone…
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“Take Our Picture!” (Children of Cork Say Fuck You/ I Love You)
These kids were awesome. They were hanging out at the tables of an otherwise empty outdoor cafe, smoking and hanging out. The four of us went up to look at the menu, tourist-style, with me and my camera out, tourist-style. “Take our picture!” I pull up the camera and aim. It doesn’t take much for…
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The Importance of Brutalism in Destroying the Fetish of the Old
The campus of Trinity College Dublin reminded me anew of the role of brutalism in modern architecture. It was the great throat-clearer, expelling the dusty phlegm of old buildings that can oppress architects and other creators. Here’s a building right on the college green: This building is so obviously, facially new, and is 200 meters…
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Porterhouse Pub, Tremendous Trevor, and a Irish Take on Homogenized International Culture
Today was our first day in Dublin. We arrived at the Davenport Hotel in late morning (here’s a shot): We walked toward Grafton Street and stopped at the Porterhouse Pub as our first gastronomic destination. It was an odd combination of the familiar and the foreign. We don’t tend to eat at pub-style joints in…
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On Paying for the Newspaper (In Light of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius)
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare Act in the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius case. Last night I read everything I could get my iPad’s hands on via the Web site of the world’s best source for news, the New York Times. But that wasn’t enough. I went…