kerry animated

he's got his ghoulish aspect, sure, but when he spoke in NYC he had a certain bony resilience which may prove enough to overcome the hated boy president.

He might even get himself elected.

it's a blog!

welcome to the latest addition to the kapshow family

tackling the union blues
left right and center

it's herb sorrell III
and his take

New Construction III

christ, they're sprouting like mushrooms...

large version (239 k)

the newly visible construction is labeled in red, as compared to the last downtown panorama

more on 7 World Trade (including nice picture) from blogger Matt Blumberg
(via Curbed)

Two Face

King Georgie

W is for "Witchy"

I was working on a series of photographs of Bush's televised acceptance speech, but I became increasingly transfixed by this photograph:

two face

There is a remarkably contradictory expression here -- at once an an ugly, sadistic glee, and a pathetic regression to childish fear. Cover one side of the face or the other, and you can see the difference I tried to capture above. At the end of the day, I think the atavistic fear is the deeper emotion, because it appears without the malice, whereas the malice never appears without fear.

Industrialized Housing System

"In 1991, the Korean manufacturer Hanseem Corporation responded to the rapidly increasing demand for affordable housing in Korea by commissioning Richard Rogers Partnership to research the design and manufacture of a high-quality, low-cost housing system. The ultimate objective was to make 100,000 fully furnished units at twenty percent of the conventional cost."

"The Industrialized Housing system essentially comprises a kit of parts: foundation, column, structural unit, glazed unit, staircase, and balcony that could be assembled in various configurations. These components, manufactured and fitted off-site, could be transported via truck to locations throughout Korea. The modules could then be assembled at any site, including those on the steep hills that make up much of the Korean landscape, as single dwellings or in low- or high-rise configurations. The modular nature of the units would facilitate automated construction: installation would be carried out by computer-controlled cranes, much like those used to stack containers in ships, which read magnetically coded stripes placed on the units while they are still in the factory, significantly boosting the rate of production and eliminating human error."

from entry 14: Industiralized Housing System in Tall Buildings, a MOMA exhibition

via Schwarz

Someday I'll write a review...

...of Hardt and Negri's new book Multitudes.

For now, here's an interview with Michael Hardt.

These guys are so soft, it's hard to really tear into them -- reading their work is more like cutting wet dough. But I'll see if I can't fashion a few hardtack biscuits in the process -- something to gnaw on at least...

Word Virus: Motivation

Yesterday
riding the subway,
I remembered how I felt
riding the subway.

Near people
nonetheless
unreachably
far away.

One time
was a girl
near Columbia
(student?)
who I knew
with telepathic certainty
saw something
as I saw something
(slighly sloppy style
sweatpants
and unusual socks)

"Telepathic connection is a must
for anyone who would
be my friend" -- Burroughs
and I kicked myself
after I got off the train
to make my psychologist appointment

It seemed to me
then
unacceptable waste
to ride a train
with other people
and not to love them
struggle with them
touch them

I raged
against
this failure.

What a fine life!

-----------

People
with downcast
eyes

closed mouths

surveying
their own
guts

thinking
about
their
children

working
to
make
rent

easing
into
a
chair
when they get the chance.

Are they to be pitied?

------------

Wild poet's
swagger:
"my name
sincere
sin serious
delerious
I spit rhymes
furious
+ no one understands me"

he buys me
a cupful of beer
and I make him
a beef sandwich

"you didn't tell
me it was Sunday man
i hadda leava dollar
on the counter
and steal it"

------------

comfort
security
procreation

prole catz
perogatives

enough motivation

a full
stomach
can defer a
batallion of dreams

growlz
for now

when do they speak?

------------

when
I see the
poetry
of molecular
dance

cityscape
graffiti scored

(strangeness
dreamed?)

I almost
break

the dreamer
cannot awake

------------

give it up
give what up
the best is lose

motivation
is an artifice

every task
needs a reward

the more ephemeral
task
the more simple
reward

it works
without mystery

what task
is before
me?

aha

// idunno?

middle and lumpen elements are often
under-aware of the power and
utility of these social cues,
or, more precisely,
mistakenly situate them in
familial, neighborhood or other
highly local and unstable
networks.

This is only a drawback
if it's unawares-like. Beyond
that, it gives certain powers
and freedoms of criticism.

--//

New Construction II

construction on the christy avalon I

Two of the huge new construciton projects in the neighborhood, the Astor Place Building and the Chrystie Avalon, are using a new construction method, based on concrete casted in wooden forms.

Here's the Times:

Technological advances to strenghten concrete are also changing the interiors of new high-rise buildings in New York. "You can make the columns that are holding up the building thinner, which gives you more rentable space," said Carl Adler, vice president for sales at Quadrozzi Concrete in Queens. Mr. Adler's company provided the concrete for the new Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle.

Also from the article, describing a technique used to make translucent concrete, (which offers an effect similar to a paper shade):

The wall is made of a new material called LiTraCon that is embedded with fiberoptics, which allow light to be transmitted through the solid without compromising the strength of the material.

Conversation: RNC protests

Again, Eric and I find ourselves at productive odds.

Eric on the protests and a comments back-and-forth

Eric's next plank and my rejoinder

RNC Week -- aftermath

What a long week it was last week. Infernally hot, weirdly quiet. Business was way down at the cart. My collaborator, who is starting to settle in working the nights I don't, had lame buisiness Sunday and Monday, even though there was a big activist shindig at Pianos. Why? our regulars weren't around. Everybody who wasn't tied down left the city.

The regulars left, and a whole lot of people came. It was as though the field of battle was being cleared: the Republicans on the one side, protesters on the other, the police in the middle.

Given that build-up, it was hard for the actual show could live up. I mean, half a million protesters on Sunday wasn't bad (that's about 1/600 of the total population of the U.S. gathered in one mass, for those of you who like figures), but NYC is a bigger stage still.

But I did bump into Jimmylegs.

I started walking with the L.E.S. contingent

The fuji/NYPD blimp took some pictures of us

There was a small fire,

some police freaked out a little, shaking the barricades like gorillas and ineffectually flailing at a few miscreants (no photo available) -- not too many arrests -- about 250 i think

The more militant marches of Monday were pretty impressive. Groups ranging from 5 to 30 thousand in various locations. One group, the poor people's march i think, maybe joined by the economic justice march, pushed the police line way back through negotiation and overwhelming peaceful presence. I wish i'd been there.

Relatively few arrests

Tuesday started ugly. A group of 500 protesters marching from ground zero was arrested right off the bat, despite following all the orders of the police. "do these protesters look violent?" CBS news asked, showing footage of the sergent shouting "you're all under arrest!" at a crowd, the protesters and the cops looking equally bemused. "unpermitted" said the Bloomberg administration.

Meanwhile, the city stays dead, business is way off, even the shopkeepers who tried to stay open are closing down. "An economic boon" insists Bloomberg. Go Bloomberg!

I decide to venture out late, closing in on the 7 o'clock "convergence on the Garden." I dodge the mass arrests, following the fuji blimp to the center of the action.

Herald Square is packed, but they've blockaded the middle of it. Isn't it great how easily gated parks transform into DMZs?

Still following the blimp, I make my way through regulated intersections and I wander up onto 35th street, which is not blockaded. I walk right up to where the delagates are entering, close enough to shake their hands or spit on them. I refrain from either.

The fuji blimp heads south, looks like it's hovering over Union Square. I head back down, sample the gathering there -- mostly just hanging out, much as I gather Central Park has become -- and I venture home.

Wednesday my collaborator gets taken in a mass arrest sweep of the protest in Union Square. No-one is being released, nor will they be, in blatant defiance of the law, until after Big Chief Little George leaves town. It's like wolves taking down a buffalo, one snap after another as the beast loses energy and momentum. "It takes time to process all these people" Bloomberg lies, as the courts remain empty. Well over a thousand unlawfully detained.

Thursday, I watch Bush's speech and I don't have the heart to venture out with the cart. "Dead" report my friends at the Nightclub on the corner. Sentimental lies and slavering witchery from our dear leader.

Friday and Saturday I take the cart out. The crowd is spotty, almost mangy. The few regulars who stop by mostly sheepishly admit they ducked the protests.

NYC is a bigger stage still. I wish the city had stayed.

(Bloomberg has already offered to host the 2008 convention, so maybe we'll get another chance...)

Housing Price Rig Jig

I came across this report from the "Manhattan Institute" (whatever that is):
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_39.htm

The authors attempt to define what they call "zoning tax."

Zoning Tax = Market Price of a Housing Unit – Production Cost of that Unit

Now am I being daft, or are they talking about profits, not "tax?"

Through a series of complicated (and quite interesting) calculations, peg this "tax" at about 50% (make that superprofits).

[Most interesting among their facts: the marginal cost of production of "average" quality dwellings in Manhattan = $160/square foot. "Economical" dwellings (those which do no more than meet building codes) = just $96/square foot. So, our apartment, again = 350 sq ft * $96/sq ft = 33,600. Not bad, eh? Let's build more! Pinky's prescription to get it done.]

But back to the institute wonks. Their point, which they seem oddly loath to dish straight out, is that the City of New York gave out very few building permits '80s and '90s, which massively inflated housing costs. They are so eager to dismiss the possibility of oligopoly -- which they define as literal exclusion of small-fry builders, that they shit all over their own findings of considerable superprofits for those builders who can get permits.

Told straight out, this raises all sorts of interesing questions, starting with possibility of massive direct corruption -- permits only to "friendly" developers -- and ending with a certainty of fucklebuck squeezing of city residents through housing cost hikes.

Tell it wide, 'kay?

a tentative extended thought: Greenspan weighs in: "no way to tell if there is a housing bubble." The value of urban land, Al the green and his ilk figure, is "impossible to calculate." The author's themselves make quite a point of this, too. But if I understand the finance right, this is completely bogus -- it's impossible to calculate the market value of land, because land is unique. It is only possible to determine using an active government policy like the one pinky advocates (same link as above). Instead of what is done now, which is: 1)depress land values by preventing new construction, which 2) inflates the values of existing buildings (and those few new building permits doled out by the city gov't). The authors' "taxes" never reach the hand of the government, they go straight into the big pockets. How much can they squeeze out of the city = how much rent, on the one hand; on the other, how many hours of commute time (commuting represents a major under-industrialization of the American economy). [my hazy understanding of the relation between these two is why I need to study the theory of rent]

Instead of all that, the government can figure out how much land is worth very easily, by 1) taxing land at the maximum possible rate (how do you know the maximum? when landlord's are abandoning buildings you've reached the top) 2) driving up the value of land, and 3) raising the total value and pushing down per-unit value of city buildings, therefore 4) pushing down rent. Nice, huh? The question is the analytical tool. The market is in buildings, assholes, and you can only rationalize it by assertive government action in relation to land. But I suspect Al and his clutch know this already...

Are we in for a great snatch of wealth by means of real estate? Is the "unknown land value" of real estate being used to lure in small investors just as the "unknown future value" of technologies that was used to lure small-fry investors into the NASDAQ? In New York, I have the strong feeling we might be in for a swoop very soon. I don't know if all of these new buildings will tip it -- will there be a pop, can it come down gently, or will the whole thing bust open in scandal?

Liars

I woke up this afternoon to an interview with Joel Klein, Mayor Bloomberg's "special apointee" to the position of Schools Chancellor, his coup replacement of the School Committee. Not one true word came out of his mouth, and not one straight response. He couldn't even answer the soft-pitch "what's the most important lesson you've learned" honestly. When questioned about the lack of checks and balances, he responded: "Well, there are still checks and balances. There's Albany, and, of course, there's the public." As if to say: and you're not casting aspersions on the public of this great city, are you. Ha ha ha. There are liars, and there are through-and-through liars.

I enjoyed watching Martha Stewart Living, because she was a through-and-through liar. It's a basic job requirement for the position of CEO, and Stewart's TV show was a chance to see exended footage of a CEO every day of the week. Here you could observe the first, most important rule of lying:

1) Immediately deny what is obviously true.

If Martha's hand were to wobble when she was icing a cookie, and she could be counted on to say "Look at how perfectly straight and even I'm piping on this icing." Every time. Same thing with Bloomberg. He announced yesterday what a fantastic success for the city the Republican convention had been, and issued offers to host both the Republican and Democratic Conventions in 2008.

Bloomberg is the best example of the next rule:

2) Affect annoyance at having to explain yourself at all.

Communication is by necessity a two-way street, so it is extremely important to make the people who you are talking to as uncomfortable as possible. Uncalled-for hostility is one of the best ways. It also helps to be so disgusting that you make people squeamish.

3) When in doubt, answer a question that was never asked.

It takes a disciplined line of questioning to break through this technique, and requires an unabashed willingness to make your interviewee look like a total asshole. Most of the press people who get to do exended interviews are chosen for their likeability, and, more importantly, their desire to be liked. You'll almost never see one of them tough enough to crack a determined liar.

Finally:

4) Displace the shame of lying onto the lied-to.

Pretend that it is an insult to suggest that the American public could believe a lie. 'Are you saying the public is stupid!' Honest communicators fall for this one all the time, getting tripped up in trying to extricate themselves from the blatant idiocy of this proposition.