natecooper.net

The passage of Prop 1a is a great opportunity and for me somewhat surprising given this is the first time I’ve voted in a major election outside of California. (As is of course the disappointing passage of Prop 8). The California High Speed Rail Blog has published an excellent list of Next Steps concerning where to go from here to support the High Speed Rail system. In my mind the biggest thing on that list as far as forward thinking planning has to support of current infrastructure (point 6). However, supporting existing rail infrastructure alone is simply one piece of the puzzle. A drastic restructuring of zoning and city planning must simultaneously occur to not only ensure the success of the system but to restructure California to absorb the overwhelming population growth expected in the coming decades.

To be sure, California is going to grow larger and the High Speed Rail project is a landmark affirmation for focusing that growth in existing urban centers in the state. However, the cities themselves need to act resolutely to capitalize on the significant investment to enact change. While in the past several decades urban centers across the state have been financing transit infrastructure improvements — the latest and most notable being Los Angeles county’s Measure R; what has lagged in the state is significant rewriting of archaic (more…)

natecooper.net is making it appear as if all I’ve been reading is cracked.com and BLDGBLOG. Could be worse I guess. BLDGBLOG’s discussion of “extreme signage” [link] does pique my interest. I don’t know if I fully agree with the assessment of this fountain as “public signage that no one can read”. Seems to me that it may be simple enough to read if the amount of gradation is not so much on a sliding scale but on minor variations (ala red light, green light, yellow light). Furthermore I’ve often thought that Los Angeles needs more and more large scale public (art) works projects. The city is so flat and widespread that dramatically scaled structures with aesthetic value would help define the landscape better (the Watts towers not excepted).

On the topic of extreme signage I’d throw my hat in to vote for the Clock in Union Square. I’ve even have it explained to me and I still feel totally inept at my inability to read it. Luckily the Gothamist has a little primer [link] if you’d like the mystery ruined.

John King, architectural critic for the SF Chronicle and the only newspaper columnist in my google reader takes a trip to L.A. and reports back about some of the new buildings and communities that have recently opened [link]

“Next to the Cheesecake Factory stands a curvy diner with a 1950s look - the one nod to Southern Californias long love affair with automobiles. Except, of course, for the 3,500-car parking garage.”

 link 

LA Times Article on Post-Sprawl Los Angeles …. I’ve thought about this a lot in the past couple years

Ever since my sister brought up that she had never heard anyone use the word “hipster” before (saying that she had heard of “scenesters”) I’ve been curious about the distinction between hipster and scenester and what they mean in our modern vocabulary.

My recent move to New York has reinvigorated my own internal debate abotu the whole “Hipster” versus “Scenester” thing since I have noticed further regional distinctions.

When I was in Santa Cruz an aquantence of mine mentioned that they tend to use the word “Hipster” in Nor Cal and “Scenester” in SoCal. Here are some defintions I’ve found to ground your understanding:

Hipster Definition (Urban Dictionary)
Scenester definition (Urban Dictionary)

From these general definitions I can gather two general senses of the distinctions:
1. Scenesters are about image and dress and what is “in”
2. Hipsters are intellectuals (or pretend to be) who watch independent movies and read

The regional issue that is tripping me out having recently moved to the east coast is that it seems to me that the term “Hipster”, like in Northern California, is more in-vogue in New York than the term “Scenester”. I would suspect this is simply because from what I can tell every one in New York reads.

But what seems a bit anachronistic to me is the fact that generally one is called a hipster here just for looking a certain way, the way being, to me, typically San Francisco. I don’t think that everyone in San Francisco is a hipster but I do believe that if any of my friends from San Francisco were to come out here they would immediately be labeled a “Hipster”, a distinction they would not warrant back home.

I myself prefer the more tradition definition of the term hipster (found here) which is more in-line with beat culture. It is alluded to in the definitions from the Urban Dictionary but mostly in derisive ways. Still if you were to go with that definition then most likely no one is a hipster any longer.

This whole spinach ban thing is getting big press in the west… the San Francisco Chronicle and the La Times have had a front page story on it every day since the weekend.

See these recent headlines:
LaTimes Story
SF Gate Article

The New York Times, which didn’t seem to have any front page stories on it all weekend. Despite the fact that this is a nation-wide issue.

See this article buried in the “Health” section:
Ny Times Article

Now granted the New York Times has a larger focus in international news and there are articles of international import but just today this story is plastered on the front page:

NY Times article on Laguna Beach

I don’t really want to criticize any one paper but for days I’ve been thinking that the spinach thing mainly affected the west. And granted, having lived in both the west coast and east coast I can say without a doubt, health issues especially concerning food is going to be defacto a bigger issue in California than in New York. But still if we aren’t supposed to be eating spinach nationwide.. I wish the New York media would let us know that.

The Chronicle and LA Times have been showing pictures of empty store shelves across California. I can’t say I’ve seen the same over here in New York City.

Still I think I’ll avoid the spinach…

“New York, rising high, eliminates its pas with a wrecking ball; Los Angeles, spreadin out, broods over its history until it rots.”

I liked this quote from David Denby’s review of The Black Dahlia. Perhaps the only sentence David Denby’s written that I’ve enjoyed.