quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

lol there was a charity auction here called "barkitecture" probably five years ago, with local architects having designed doghouses

hahah brownie

bowwowhaus

We're going to do this, aren't we?

Mies Van Der Roowwwrrrrr.
Rem Currhaus.

well, we were

Santiago Collietrava

Const-ruff-tivisim

Frank Lloyd Wolfhound

Le Corgiusier

I.M. Shar-Pei

swear to god i was about to post i.m. shar pei

frank gehryhound

all i could think of was frank lloyd bite. which is pretty dumb.

velvet undergrowl

spaniel libeskind?

all i could think of was frank lloyd bite. which is pretty dumb.

I thought of posting 'Frank Lloyd Woof' earlier but ultimately decided not to

both are better than what i did :-(

rem doghaus

rem kooldog

anBONEio gaudi

Antoni Chow-di

JINX

yours is better, no jinx

great danish modern

dogggg

art doggo

pawlladio

fleas van der rohe

st. bernard tschumi

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/05/22/sm_doghouse_0522_480x360.jpg

Frank FURness

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m28upohaeI1rsiucno1_1280.jpg

Arcatecture, . . . GO!

on the bubble here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/

arfs & crafts movement

The Busytown Trap

If your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary.

imho it goes a level deeper than this piece even dares to admit, people are not actually busy

“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.” This may sound like the pronouncement of some bong-smoking anarchist, but it was actually Arthur C. Clarke, who found time between scuba diving and pinball games to write “Childhood’s End” and think up communications satellites. My old colleague Ted Rall recently wrote a column proposing that we divorce income from work and give each citizen a guaranteed paycheck, which sounds like the kind of lunatic notion that’ll be considered a basic human right in about a century, like abolition, universal suffrage and eight-hour workdays. The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment.

none of this is particularly radical or crazy

I like the piece mostly

Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence. - opposite of my experience, maybe hang out w/ someone who's not rich and/or ted rall

the guy is a marginally successful cartoonist so I would bet he has friends whose marriages are not covered by the nyt

i was just reading a guardian article about people working too much. it was pretty good. someone posted it on my facebook. dunno if i can find it now.

a better read of the article would be 'professional cartoonist proposes gov't guaranteed income'

xp

ie what i literally hear from ppl who work crazy icu shifts or what i literally tell ppl when i've worked 14 hour (minimum) days for 7 days a week for a few weeks is that i am 'busy' (easy to picture turning his head quizzically at the word like a dog, or data from star trek: tng for an example more in his wheelhouse maybe). this busyness is tbf due to ambition and drive and maybe even anxiety over the potential that you might be unemployed or working a useless job you hate (esp if before the 'busy' job you actually did work a few of the busy jobs you hated, some of which actually did require taking the bus and did actually pay minimum wage). dread? if what you have to face in the absence is being a grown man that gleans insight from sci-fi and alt weekly cartoonists and then thinks this insight is worth an op-ed than yes, dread has now entered the equation.

that busytown thing is okay. he kinda has the disclaimer at the beginning about how he's not talking about miserable poor people who work too much. so he's covered and can rhapsodize about being lazy. i love being lazy too. i hate doing almost everything. so, i'm with him. does anyone know his cartoon stuff? never heard of him.

a better better read would be 'professional cartoonist made poor job choice, still can't figure out why, scoffs at ppl who have to put on pants to go to work, actually contribute to society, etc'

if you only have to work 4 or 5 hours a day and you work for yourself and you can make a living...you are doing things right.

arfs and crafts is hella good, btw.

there are plenty of highly paid professional jobs where your hourly productivity is not measurable by your boss/clients but your hours are. I've worked places where everyone was staying til 8 because they wanted to be the people staying til 8, not because it was particularly necessary - the office was awfully inefficient w/ its time during the day. when value becomes fuzzy - which can be the case for a lot of white collar labor - appearance is everything.

xp

Chana
Amsterdam, Netherlands

I have lived and worked in Europe for almost 12 years and will be returning to the U.S. soon. I have learned a great deal about how to live a life here. There is a palpable stress and tension in the air when you step off of a plane into the U.S. People are usually glum, usually overweight and cranky - and often worse. I contrast that with the calm and happy customer service I get here...even from people making a modest income by any standard and have to conclude that Americans have made a terrible mistake. They believe their own P.R. to their own detriment. We have *not* got it all right in America.

In Europe, a vacation is considered a health/work balance *necessity* - not a work *benefit* that you may (or may not) have a chance to use. People who do not take vacations are not looked up to here - they are actually viewed negatively - as people who do not have their life priorities in order.

As I leave here soon, I am moving to a small, organic farm in northern New York. I will work hard, I'm sure - but I have realized...I could never go back to a typical American life working for a company that offers me two weeks of vacation a year (ludicrous) - and who considers health care a "benefit" to be crowed about in their recruitment ads.

Thanks, Europe - for the invaluable experiences and life lessons. You may have your issues - so does the whole world - but you are still balancing them with grace for the most part.

i think the quiddity article today was more

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/nyregion/its-a-goldman-world-in-battery-park-city.html?hpw

i mean, 'acquire spicy onion rings at 1 am'.

here's the guardian thing on working too much. instead of alt cartoonists you get oscar wilde.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/01/why-are-we-working-so-hard