Burnin’

Thanks to an article in Dwell, I’m freaking out right now. In a good way. I’m freaking because I just learned about El Cosmico, the new community art project from Bunkhouse Management.

Bunkhouse is the team behind the coolest hotel in the world, Austin’s Hotel San Jose. Their vision of El Cosmico is equally enthralling.

El Cosmico will be part yurt and hammock hotel, part residential living, part art-house, greenhouse and amphitheatre – a community space that fosters and agitates artistic and intellectual exchange. As part of the overall aim to build community in a creative and sustainable space, thirty renovated vintage trailers will make up a small village on the site.

This experiement is taking place in West Texas, outside the small town of Marfa.

Like any great community project, there is a blog to keep people in the loop.

“Throw out them LA papers and that moldy box of vanilla wafers. Adios to all this concrete. Gonna get me some dirt road back street.” -Guy Clark

Image couretsy of Flickr user Matt Logelin

I stumbled across this strange, but well writtern, BLDGBLOG post about the city of Los Angeles, after following a link from Dooce’s sidebar. Geoff Manaugh, the writer, is interested in architecure and urban planning and he LOVES L.A. (more than most).

L.A. is the apocalypse: it’s you and a bunch of parking lots. No one’s going to save you; no one’s looking out for you. It’s the only city I know where that’s the explicit premise of living there – that’s the deal you make when you move to L.A.

The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic.

It says: no one loves you; you’re the least important person in the room; get over it.

What matters is what you do there.

So, it’s some kind of extreme version of America meritocracy? I’m not so sure. I think appearances, contrary to Manaugh’s arguments, do matter in L.A. But I will concede that it’s far, far away from the East Coast aristocracy (where the fact that your great great grandfather went to Harvard matters immensely).

In the comments to his post, a person known only as Steve, has some great insight and reactions. Steve–who says he lives across the street from Manaugh in San Francisco–invites Manaugh to return to the City of Angels.

I’m sick to death of ambitious people moving to San Francisco and complaining the whole time about how it’s not L.A. or New York, and whining about how it’s not whatever it was they expected, which usually boils down to “I thought San Francisco would give me X, but it’s not doing that!” …as if the good to be gotten from a city is what you can take from it, rather than what you can add to it.

San Francisco doesn’t need any more people lecturing it about how it should feel inadequate because it’s not somewhere else. It needs its own heroes: people who are committed to making it great here and now by doing and making stuff that leverages the city’s unique beauties, and forming fertile collaborative bonds with other people who live here — like everywhere; like you would be in L.A.

One thing that’s not up for debate—place fosters culture. And being in the right place is central to one’s happiness.

President Bush ignored China’s pleas and honored one of the world’s most spiritual men yesterday.

“Americans cannot look to the plight of the religiously oppressed and close our eyes or turn away,” Bush said at the U.S. Capitol building, where he personally handed the Dalai Lama the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal.

“I support religious freedom; he supports religious freedom. … I want to honor this man,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “I have consistently told the Chinese that religious freedom is in their nation’s interest.”

China reviles the 72-year-old monk as a Tibetan separatist and vehemently protested the elaborate public ceremony. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing said the events “seriously wounded the feelings of the Chinese people and interfered with China’s internal affairs.”

Maybe Chinese officials could consider the internal affairs of Tibet, before spouting off in such fashion.

[via The New York Times]

My heart is heavy today, for an old friend lost his little boy to cancer last night.

Mason’s story is a heartbreaking one. It’s also a story of immense courage, compassion, love, family, community, soccer and more.

Thanks to the generosity, eloquence and untiring bravery of Mason’s parents, we can all share in this boy’s life and his family’s struggle. There’s a lot to learn and feel.

It’s clear that Mason touched the lives of those around him and made them better. I regret that I never had the good fortune to meet him.

[UPDATE] At the suggestion of Mason’s parents, I’m helping Mason do something special for the pediatric oncology floor at Children’s Hospital by donating to: Mason Leach’s Super Star Fund, c/o Children’s National Medical Center, attn: Volunteer and Consumer Support Services, 111 Michigan Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20010.

The town that helped end school segregation offered Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a backdrop Thursday to offer a variation on a familiar theme: the two Americas.

“We still have two school systems in America,” he told a group gathered in the library at Scotts Branch High School. “We have one for the affluent and one for everybody else.”

Edwards’ remarks came in the town that spawned the Supreme Court ruling that, in 1954, ordered the desegregation of schools. It was part of a daylong tour of S.C. counties known as the “Corridor of Shame” for their impoverished schools and economies.

Edwards pushed a litany of remedies for failing rural schools. Among other things, he would offer universal preschool, a bonus of up to $15,000 to teachers in needy schools, and a new “teaching university” he compared to West Point. It would offer a free education to those willing to commit to teaching.

[via The Charlotte Observer]

10 Zen Monkeys has a compelling piece on the interwebs and whether advances in communications technology is any good for writers. RU Sirius asks 10 writers to consider the question. Here are some bits of wisdom from one of the 10 writers, Mark Drey.

On writing as a commodity:

As someone who once survived (albeit barely) as a freelancer, I can say with some authority that the freelance writer is going the way of the Quagga. Well, at least one species of freelance writer: the public intellectual who writes for a well-educated, culturally literate reader whose historical memory doesn’t begin with Dawson’s Landing. A professor friend of mine, well-known for his/her incisive cultural criticism, just landed a column for PopMatters.com. Now, a column is yeoman’s work and it doesn’t pay squat. But s/he was happy to get the gig because she wanted to burnish her brand, presumably, and besides, as she noted, “Who does, these days?” (Pay, that is.)

On breaking through the clutter:

We’re drowning in yak, and it’s getting harder and harder to hear the insightful voices through all the media cacophony. Oscar Wilde would be just another forlorn blogger out on the media asteroid belt in our day, constantly checking his SiteMeter’s Average Hits Per Day and Average Visit Length.

I also like what Paul Krassner has to say:

I have become as much in awe of Technology as I am of Nature. And although I blog for free, occasional paid assignments have fallen into my lap as a result.

Better than lapdancing.

Clayton Holton of Dover, NH has muscular dystrophy. In the clip above he tells Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney that his doctor says he’s “living proof that medical marijuana works.”

His question for the candidate is, “Will you arrest me and my doctors?” The candidate douche bag says, I’m not in favor of medical marijuana and coldly walks away from the young man.

What a disgrace this is. There’s so much stupidity and fear in the world, but refusing to help people who are sick has to be one of the lowest forms of human behavior on record.

Palmetto Bluff is so Hollywood. A couple of years ago, Oscar attendees received free vacations at the exclusive May River resort. Now, the property is benefitting from free advertising care of the CBS daytime soap opera “The Young and the Restless.”

On the sopa, characters Nikki and Victoria Newman are busy developing fictitious “Clear Springs,” a community taking its cues from the very real Palmetto Bluff.

Palmetto Bluff gets this free publicity in exchange for providing the show with artwork to use as a prop, which is a pretty sweet deal considering product placement deals can run into the millions of dollars.

Tom Gardo, a spokesman for the Inn at Palmetto Bluff commenting on incremental business said, “It’s been great for us.”

Crescent Resources, a unit of Duke Energy, developed the property. The Inn at Palmetto Bluff is run by California-based Auberge Resorts.

[via The Island Packet]

River Cities Inc. of St. Paul, MN is developing a twist on condo living. As odd as it may sound, they’re bringing adventure travel into the mix by constructing a floating community that will navigate America’s inland waterways.

Their so-called “River City” will be on the move all year, cruising the northern rivers in the summer and the southern rivers and Intracoastal Waterways in the winter. The rivers include the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Cumberland, Arkansas and Atchafalaya. Plus the Tombigbee and Intracoastal Waterways.

Amenities include a grocery store, restaurants, concierge service, a rooftop lounge, theaters, activity rooms, a library, hot tubs and pools, fitness equipment, walking tracks, a rooftop chipping course and even fishing.

A 924 s.f. condo is going for $499,000. Fractional onwnership is also available.

Chicago-based humorist Tom Sherman and The Internet are now seeing other people.

She used to impress me. She really did. I loved how she could always tell me something new. Our relationship was so exciting, so invigorating. She constantly introduced me to new people. She knew all the cool places, all the right people.

But let’s face it: she’s overrated. I overestimated her.