Posts

The colour purple is still purple. Real rotten roots of a country with little current hope.

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No National leadership - even Obama - has ever addressed racial and income disparity in a meaningful or egalitarian way. It has and continues to exist with no meaningful discussion about a real plan that highlights the areas of the country where it’s really hard to make it, and implements a plan to fix it. Why?  Americans are faced with a cross-generational system that is so politically corrupt that it is not even interested in what it needs to do. It is interested in doing the bare minimum it can do to prevent revolt. Even this has failed and it now has revolt on its hands. Solutions need be at the causal level. The current system offers a choice between candidates from two morally corrupt parties most interested in self-preservation than the public they are supposed to represent. Both are hell bent on stealing well-being from the other and passing it on to their respective constituents. How did we get here? Facing a global pandemic, rioting in the streets, a movement that is challeng

Likes Come and Go. Memories last forever.

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I wonder if we still possess the ability to see the unusual in the everyday and an interest in capturing life’s in-between moments.

I love to design. I love to build more.

Grant me the clarity to face the things I cannot change with the desire to investigate and learn, the courage to fail, and the curiosity to persist at perpetual improvement.

Hear the Image. See the Sound.

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Earth revolves around her axis in one day; the Moon orbits around Earth in one month; and Earth around the Sun in one year. How we engage in this rotational journey is unique to each of us. Forever within the common confines of 24 hour time, and forever seeking synchronicity; attempting to seek balance amongst the geophonies, biophonies, and anthrophonies of our worlds.  If one cannot physically and audibly connect with the natural world, how are we supposed to grasp its implications beyond cerebral understanding?

Third Space and the Authenticity of the Observed

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In a culture that attempts defiance of the realities that its people do not have constant meaning, recent regressive political paradigm shifts bring great concern for the emergent meanings that will be fashioned in the context of this new culture; what we will make things mean or signify moving forward.  Islamism or Africanism might substitute Orientalism, but its the upholding of such binary perspectives that masks a hybrid  nature of a colonial encounter and the postcolonial condition. According to Edward Said, “anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient is an Orientalist” (quoted in Sardar and Van Loon 1999, 109), and what they say or do is Orientalism. Orientalism is a cultural derivation of, primarily, the European and American search for self-identity. This search has led to a destructive and omniscient spread of colonial persuasion. Formulating a distinction between the “orient and the Occident ” results from the West’s changes in cultural constructions of

Uninvited Publicity

I wish to be clear about my position on the proposed development at Pier 6 adjacent my home at 1 Brooklyn Bridge Park as t his 'piece' , along with mentions in curbed ny and other recent commentary written by the Gothamist , even Ms. Robbin's ramblings in the NY Times  - author of this weekends conversation-igniter - seems more contexomy than journalism. Mr. Colon, in fact, seems rather proud of his abilities to write editorial between "drunk tweets . . .  and . . . listening to arguments drift in through [his[ window".  I am NOT opposed to development at Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, nor am I the resident "Gladiator" out to lead the resistance of "dunderheads"  (the office reference is lost here) against an "incursion of housing" in our community. A Landscape Architect by profession, I am a designer and lover of Parks and Public Space as part of smart development and urban design. I am also NOT opposed to living within a cult

'A Battle OVER Brooklyn Bridge Park'

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Not two years ago Hurricane Sandy swept across the Northeastern United States and Canada bringing a sobering blow to our (in)humane ability to test natures resolve. A new park on Governors Island emerged from Sandy's wrath with a stunning outcome that confirmed its preparedness and long vision for a changing world; a testament to 'designing-in change'. Raising the height of the Island's Park did not come without much debate. The beneficial effects of such debate, however, were ultimately revealed; the visionary planning and design can manifest by the Park's resilience and current use.  Across the Buttermilk Channel stands Brooklyn Bridge Park; still emerging as a regional if not national success story in the world of parks and public spaces, but steeped in debate and writhing in controversy over it's recently misconstrued reputation as a " residential enclave for the wealthiest New Yorkers " . . . " going full-NIMBY and waging war over the scou