more fun with plumbing. i wont complain about how long it took the plumber to engage with the project because he is here now or he was a minute ago. now he is out solving a problem i created for him although admittedly i thought it was the easiest solution and therefore cheapest solution which is turning out probably not to be the case.

all the pipes for my shower are outside the wall and probably pretty ancient. though who knows, maybe they were replaced 30 years ago. im told they are brass painted over with a matte silver finish though the finish has been unfinished for as long as ive been here and undoubtedly much longer. 

the final 3 foot pipe leading up to the shower arm (a term i just learned) and ultimatley the shower head had eroded at the juncture just above the hot and cold knobs. so it wasnt a plumbing emergency since there was no leakage, i just couldnt take a shower or at least not one very well as i found out this morning as i held the broken pipe in place as i attempted a quick rinse cycle. but as far as i could tell the threading on the female coupling was intact and only that the one stretch of piping needed to be replaced. the plumber in his hasty appraisal had just decided it was easier to replace the entire run of pipes including the faucets and the shower head, et al. should i have cared? probably not. was it likely something marginally less asthetically pleasing? i couldnt even say because he never brought it over for me to see, although he complained that he couldnt return it which seems unlikely as it was purchased today and is unopened. 

i never actually complained that he was replacing "an antique" for something lesser, but that is what he decided was my concern. i really was thinking of it as the simplest fix, as i said, and the cheapest. i left him alone to do what he would after he snapped at me for acting like his wife which he doesnt have. but in the time he was disassembling the shower arm from the wall he decided he would give it a go... without any real prompting. so he left and came back with the same poorly painted brass pipe with some fresh new threading on one end. i didnt even know that was a thing. unfortunately, the threading didnt match. he said something about it being female to female. i gave him a 'whaddya gonna do' look, and the answer was look for a connecting piece to join the two. is that a fitting? maybe?

so the buzzer just knocked me out of my stupor. next stage is upon us. im not gonna even bother to look in until he yelps in frustration or triumph.

rumor is the real deal in peruvian.....

the order of things (itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini)

don'ts

35 years ago: the tribeca bridge project

use value art (pdf)

anybody see the nice guys?  is there a post that is going to magically appear when im not looking? pretty amusing thus far. russell crowe definitely let himself go. streaming it from my computer with a newly purchased googlecast. not completely won over but pretty good option for $30 if like me you are tired of tripping over cords.

MB have you been here yet for oysters??

im only two eps in but two thumbs up for netflix's stranger things, the retro 80s supernatural thriller.

rest in peace..........

Watching movies again.......

Exorcist.....that was fun!!

Metroplis Restored......painful but brilliant

Star Trek.......still love them

Best buy of the year.....$5.60 each!!

Can anyone ID this?

chorizo, bread & butter pickles, spicy brown mustard on seeded rye

seltzer water w/lemon wedge

Late summer goodness. Squash and fingerlings from down the road. Halibut with avo-stachio sauce. Super sweet corn on the cob not shown. 

 

 

Your work is often built upon a system of variation. But it is never very obvious whether this system follows as a precise rule. Do the existing possibilities stand for all the other unrealized ones?

I just do the possibilities which are the most interesting. I don’t want to realize a comprehensive sequence of all the possible solutions. Because usually just some of them are good. Usually I can think of many more possibilities than I can afford to build.

 

 

 

In The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College, Eva Diaz describes the discordant yet equally hermetic teaching methodologies of Joseph Albers, John Cage, and R. Buckminister Fuller that were developed during the years immediately following World War II at Black Mountain College. The “unaccredited college in rural Appalachia became a vital hub of cultural innovation” and was known primarily for artistic experimentation and its holistic aim “to educate a student as a person and a citizen.” It had a major impact on what would become contemporary artistic practice during and after the mid-1940s and early 1950s. Located in western North Carolina, the college’s history presents a dynamic narrative of radical innovation in terms of educational philosophy. In addition to Albers, Cage, and Fuller, other famous participants include Merce Cunningham, Clement Greenberg, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell. Among many prominent students, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Kenneth Noland contributed to the college’s reputation for free experimentation and artistic diversity.

 

i love Dick

first attempt was just OK......Coho w/ crispy chanterelles

Mayor Bill de Blasio was asked about his thoughts on the statue.  "That is a frightening thought," de Blasio said. When he's wearing clothes I don't like him. I can only imagine what he's like without clothes."

De Blasio added, "of course we are not going to let people put up ad hoc statues."

A hawk (I think? Alex?) on the fire escape across the street.

Pig in a box