Month: December 2006

“This is the most significant economic development project on the City’s agenda. It’s monumental in its scope and importance.” – Mayor Mark Kruzan

Chiara sent me the city’s page about this project.  Sadly, while I was aware of the city’s plans to turn the old CSX railroad grade that runs through downtown into a bike path, I didn’t know exactly what the form of that consturction would be.  Also sadly, I missed out on the public comment opportunities that seemed to happen in the last year.  Phase I construction starts summer 2007. 

The mockup photo above is pretty silly looking with an ugly, expensive-looking Columbus, Indiana style bridge replacing the charming stencil-artwork covered train bridge that now crosses 3rd St.  I also thought it was funny how the plan depicts murals on the back of the convetion center, but how a friend’s charming stencil mural of manatees near that area was painted over in a matter of days.

Of course I like bike paths, but this project seems expensive for something that seems like it could be usefully constructed in a much more simple way.  My concerns are that the project would be constructed with the primary intent being recreation and commerce with no regard to the trail as a transporation route.  The implication of this is that it further solidifies the perception (most dangerously by motorists) that cycling or other pedestrian traffic exists only as a recereational activity and not as a legitimate or desireable mode of transportation.  Traversing the 3 lanes of traffic on a north-south journey on Walnut or College is one of the more harrowing cycling experiences in town, and it seems like this trail, paralleling those streets, with the proper support, could be invaluable for encouraging bike use to travel around the city. 

From an asthetic standpoint, what I miss as a geographical feature in Bloomington as a river.  I think it’s an interesting design paradigm, to approach something like a bike path as a geographic feature that gives continuity to a landscape or area rather than as a development platform for commerce or park structures.  I guess what I like about train tracks, or rivers is their isolation from their surroundings and how one’s interaction with the geography can be pretty personal and unmediated.  Ugly bridges, excercise courses and coffe kiosks seem to be pretty far from all of that. Link

I was procrastinating at work and found this audio and transcript produced by MoMA of a conversation with the artist Kara Walker.

MoMA | online projects | Conversations | Kara Walker:

I knew that if I was going to make work that had to deal with race issues, they were going to be full of contradictions. Because I always felt that it’s really a love affair that we’ve got going in this country, a love affair with the idea of it [race issues], with the notion of major conflict that needs to be overcome and maybe a fear of what happens when that thing is overcome– And, of course, these issues also translate into [the] very personal: Who am I beyond this skin I’m in?

Delicious and definitely not vegan, I tasted some yesterday and it was crazy.  Like many delicious things, it seems pretty labor intensive.

ItalianMade.com – RECIPES: PANDORO:

This cake is a Christmas specialty from Verona and is as famous as panettone.

2 cups flour
3 oz. baker’s yeast
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
5 egg yolks
1 whole egg
6 oz. butter
1 pinch vanilla
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
3 tbs. cream
4 tbs. butter
5 tbs. sugar
vanilla-flavored powdered sugar

Knead together 4 tbs. flour, yeast, 1/2 tbs. sugar, and 1 egg yolk, adding some warm water if necessary. Let rise, covered, in a warm draft-free place for a couple of hours, or until doubled in size. Knead the risen dough with 2 cups flour, 1 oz. softened butter, 2 oz. sugar and 2 yolks. Knead energetically for 15 mins. Let rise for another two hours or until it has doubled in size again.

Place the remaining flour, 2 tbs. butter, 4 tbs. sugar, 2 yolks, the whole egg and the fermented dough on the pastry board. Knead again for 20 mins. Let rise 2 hours for the third time. Take the dough again and knead in a pinch of vanilla, the grated lemon rind and 2 or 3 tsp. cream. When the dough is well mixed, roll into a 12×8-in. rectangle. Cut the butter into chunks, let it soften and place in the center of the dough.

Fold the dough back onto itself from both directions to make 3 layers and roll it out again. Let the dough rest for half an hour, fold again and roll out two more times, letting the dough rest in a warm place in between.

Butter and dust with sugar a deep mold, preferably a deep, star-shaped mold. Place the dough in the mold (it should fill it only halfway) and let rise until the dough reaches the upper rim of the pan. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 375°F. After 20 mins. reduce the temperature to 325°F and bake for another 20 mins.

I found another recipe as well.

Books and other writing

• Going Under by Kojo Ya
• No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.- Mexico Border
• Kindred by Octavia Butler
• Crystal Cities
• All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated by Nell Bernstein
• Discourse on Colonialism or The Wretched of the Earth or Black Skin, White Masks
• ravilution column in MRR
• “Does Globalization Help or Hurt the World’s Poor?” – Scientific American 4/2006.

Music

• contrepetera (or is it contrapatera ?)
• eskorbuto
• lost world
• ekkaia
• Comet Gain – ‘City Fallen Leaves’
• Huggy Bear
• Jazz Album by members of Outkast
• lespotagersnatures.free.fr (recording collective run by members of Api Uiz who toured with The Good Good in 2006.05. Dave Penn says that they put all their releases on the Internet as an MP3).

Film/Video

• “On a Note of Triumph: Norman Corwin’s Golden Years”
• The Human Condition
• The Take
• Troop 1500
• Beef with Brocolliby Puck Lo & Handle KungThis film follows a delegation of Asian Pacific Islanders from North America, Hong Kong organizers, garment workers, Korean farmers, trade
  unionists and others through a turbulent week of mass mobilization in Hong Kong against the World Trade Organization 6th Ministerial meeting last December.As neoliberal globalization replaces traditional livelihoods with low-wage factory and service work, farmers and craftspeople are forced into doing
  migrant work in urban areas and foreign countries. From China to the US, as exploitation and repression intensifies, migrants are organizing and
  fighting back.

  API dialogues explore the contradictions of globalization as neoliberalism intensifies in Asia and all around the world. Personal tales reveal the
  complexities of transnational identities, culture, class, and gender in “finding home”– focusing on our histories of migration and displacement.

  API activists grapple with “international solidarity” and building meaningful,
  accountable relationships with movements overseas, looking for tangible ways to link our local organizing to global movements that will topple
  neoliberalism and imperialism.

  contact: dragonbreathmedia@riseup.net