Getting ready for New York

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Pochade carriers ready to be packed,

TED talks are often repellent and in this, below, as usual, the tone is relentlessly self-congratulatory. The American positivity is nauseating. But I found it interesting nonetheless to understand more about zoning and the development of urban leisure spaces in New York.

https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_burden_how_public_spaces_make_cities_work?language=en#t-311820

The pity is that these modern spaces are over-designed. They are too clean and much too unambiguous to invite rich speculations. Being in them is like being in a computer simulation, a sort of Truman Show.

This is a feeling which predominates through much modern design. Idiosyncrasies and historical accidents are removed and what are left are the smooth  surfaces of hotel atriums. Times Square in the fifies has a sort of messy vigour, and looks like New York ought to look: the modern version resembles a pedestrianized street in a provincial Germans city; and has the strange absent character of the faces of those elderly people whose faces have been surgically "improved". There is something missing with the wrinkles and lines- experience.

 I want yellow cabs and bums and squalor and broken stuff as much as I want new. Broken things are interesting and it shows that people are relating to their environment in some way. Modern design is sterile. And I really don't care if Macy's gets more customers.

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And here is my calendar. six days to go:

Well here we  are. Scoring off the days.

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