h. Play

• The car. It killed horses jobs and our relationship to those majestic animals.
• It changed everything but I keep trying to imagine what it must have been to be stuck in a family, in a house, in a small village until your thirties. And all of a sudden, you have a vehicle affording you the instant gratification of absolute freedom: being able to go anywhere, anytime you want, quickly, easily, now. Escape to a hill and watch the sunset with your date’s heart beating against yours. Of course people went crazy about cars.
• The car is supreme to listen to music. It’s just science. A small box acoustically designed with six speakers will make music sound like it is from heaven (if you have good taste). I have a memory of being on Manchester Blvd with my girlfriends, windows open, warm evening breeze, full darkness five minutes away, this Larry Heard, Missing you song (instrumental) on repeat at the perfect volume where you can hear it all while still being able to talk. Perfect cruising. A memory for a lifetime.
• Road trips good or bad, are always memorable too. There is still something incredible about moving all together to the same location. “see you there!” Just like taking off in a plane, there’s always this miraculous thing floating around it. Not so long ago in human history, this was impossible.
• Taking turns every hour and chatting about stuff is so awesome. There’s something important to do (drive safe), it’s team work, there’s snacks and naps and music and conversations you might not have in other situations.
• Late night conversations. Honesty flowing like nowhere else.
• Hybrid cars are technological marvels using the best of both worlds (very simple electric system, very simple gas system) allowing them to go for 500,000 miles without sweating. The longer tools last and can be maintained for, the better.

I’m not in car culture or anti-car, I’m just like “we need them and they’re fine?”

I included a little diss note to the gift for my mom. I can’t wait to have her online after Christmas like

tsktsktstkstkstsktsktsk

Crestwood Hills, Los Angeles, California

So why are we still stuck in very traditionally shaped houses? After the 50s/60s/70s and their avant-garde architecture? After decades of amazing progress with material? With possibilities that were simply not possible back then?

Why are we still making houses like that little stupid drawing we all did when we were kids?

Simply put, because of religion and its kids (misogyny, racism).

To finance a house, you need a bank to loan you money. Banks are more often than not led by conservative, religious folks. At first when people came to them with futuristic houses looking like nothing else, those bankers mumbled but accepted them:  a majority of people dreamed of new things after two world wars, and house shortage was too strong to not sign off whatever housed people. Pure necessity.

The demographics of people looking for modern architecture have always been full of non-religious, progressive folks. People trying something new, questioning things. People not afraid of breaking from the past. People mingling with different races. People not going to church. Women with opinions and power.

Bankers, more often than not, hated all that. So they would block mortgages. Very quickly rules and laws voted by powerful, wealthy conservative folks often connected to banks, made financing or building modern architecture difficult if not impossible.

Concept and plans of houses on a hill.

Crestwood Hills in Los Angeles had to go all the way to Washington DC to make themselves heard and get their loans approved! Many people couldn’t wait that long and withdrew their plans for a modern house.

There was also, it seems, the idea that a house without a clear entrance and a lot of privacy in the backyard was an instrument for adultery. Which, in our current modern days of blatant affairs and sophisticated toys, is a laughable concern. Especially if you add what we know is happening in churches and boys clubs but a-ny-way.

Built houses in Crestwood Hills. Privacy, community and views. Yessir.

The first community/cooperative of that kind started in 1945 in the East. It was called Usonia. The same reasons impaired the effort: banks dragging their feet and the requirements to run a successful coop, which demands a lot of work outside of people’s lives, being too much. A few amazing dozen houses were built though and like Crestwood, the spirit is still alive.

Illustrations showing how for the same size a low profile design looks larger and flows better.

Through those post-war decades Joseph Eichler was the most successful by far, but that’s only because he was a real estate developer: he was able to build whatever he wanted and it turns out being modern houses designed for good Quality of Life. He didn’t have to fight contractors to build something different than a kid’s drawing. He paid them. He built around 10,000 Eichler houses.

Modern houses from 1950s and 1960s designers are interesting because they fit our 2020s lives really well. Nice proportions, built-ins and open floor plans match our digital habits which are 20 years old now. We just need to sit down with our devices and we’re good to go for hours. No need for dining room, game room, family room and all that rigid layout from the past.

Instead of exploring new layouts connecting us with nature that we so need, we either live on top of each other in apartments acting like we’re in houses (aka we don’t respect our neighbors), or we live in houses with those living rooms open to the street, which we close with curtains at all times for privacy or because we’re done looking at that boring silver F150. Let’s add an intense flood light to make it look good /s.

And everything is made out of the cheapest material you can possibly get away with.

We are so oddly uncreative, unsophisticated and anti-progress with this housing thing. It’s crazy.

(photos from Cory Buckner’s book, Crestwood Hills, The Chronicle of a Modern Utopia)

I’ve seen 3 costumes all day and a dude and his kid almost bumped into me getting in front of me to my crib, to trick or treat. Like, so rude and no, there was no candy. Chomp and suck on some manners mfs, how about that.

Goddamn.

Not obsessed, just always will be in awe looking at it:

Built in 1954. Imagine folks looking at it. This is the year Elvis Presley is STARTING to become famous nationally. So advanced for its time.

With my quest of living in something that is not a cube, this is probably of of the best shape in a sense. A glass cube under a hyperbolic paraboloid shape.

It’s not that square is bad, it’s that it’s opaque with traditional walls. With glass walls as above, it’s not longer an issue. You keep the simplicity and efficiency of 90° furniture and layout with 360° view. Brilliant.

You can read more about it on Wikipedia and USmodernist, but it’s unreal that it’s the only one ever built. And it was destroyed in 2001.

The architect, Eduardo Catalano, lived in it for five years, when everything was working properly. The last owner had to deal with leaks in the massive roof and everything was in bad shape. 1950s technology VS hot, humid and cold weather was too much for it. Asbestos insulation!! Tragic, man.

With today’s technology? It would be a breeze. First, I would build it in California where the weather is much more easier to deal with. Out of the woods too. Leaves were an issue because a massive roof held only by two points is quite fragile.

Structurally, I don’t know. Precast UHPC (Ultra High Performance Concrete) frame? Fiber Reinforce Concrete to keep the shell light? Bamboo with solar panels? I don’t think I would be able to eliminate the tension cable above the roof. That seems to at the very least be important just in case. The only way would be to basically loop a steel cable underneath linking larger buttresses and roof corners with the tension cable under the house.

I would sink the living spaces by 1.5 meter I think. To make it a tiny bit more private without relaying on curtains. It would improve its insulation for free, too.

Anyway, I have a future post about why we’re still stuck in very traditionally shaped houses.

There are three things that have impacted the world negatively lately:

• Doing everything on a phone.
• Developing homogeneous environments.
• Following rules and laws to a T.

There are three things that Asian and South Asian communities like to do zealously:

• Doing everything on a phone.
• Developing homogeneous environments.
• Following rules and laws to a T.

Those three things align with control and conservative movements. Which are on the rise all over the world.

Hmmm.

I am the product of diversity, pluralism and globalization. I don’t like what I’m seeing.

Work is relentless and constant at the moment. So much to write about, not enough time and too much writing all day already.

I hope you have all the essentials you need and that you’re enjoying life a bit too. Shit is so wild rn.

Skating every weekend has made me so happy. Just a bit over an hour, sometimes two each day.

It’s therapy for my body. It beats my ass. I progress.

Always a bit of a battle. Lots of focus involved. Some good sun on my thirsty bones.

Good vibes with the homies. That slow back foot, always, ugh.

I keep thinking of Rodney Mullen creating all those moves from his concrete pad in Florida back in the 80s. Skateboarding is a solo activity in a lots of ways.

Trying to make my kickflip more automatic and cleaner. Heelflip in progress and I’m starting to understand a few things better. Nollie heel was close at some point, so I thought (landed one with a toe) but I rocket them in my butt now. Nollie shifty at the top of the bank is so fun! Still miserable with 50-50s and 5-0s due to horrendous board control but I landed a few clean this year. Frontside nollie to tailslide to fakie on a small ledge happened too, which is insane when I think about how shaky my body was on my board a couple years ago. Frontside nollie to switch backside crooked up the hubba is doable, I stuck it a few times.

So much to play with. The world is a mess but this brings me joy for days.

Instant, endless food.

Instant, endless shelter.

Instant, endless entertainment.

Instant, endless vibrations. Endless orgasms.

Our status-based society just isn’t relevant in a world of abundance.

The cards are so staked against most that trying to gain status is impossible or destructive anyway.

People like to say “we need to slow down” and I’m like, “let’s.”

“Dude, that’s one extremely depressing town square: Owned by a billionaire, complete corporate and government surveillance, full of ads, looks different to each participant, shows everyone a reality that gets you addicted to that square (by either showing you a reality you agree with or one you completely disagree with) and it makes you work for free just to be visible.”

From someone on the free, OG open internet out there.