There isn't a Greek god of architecture.

You should skip/dance/leap (whatever, some interesting movement) over to here.  "Here" is my blog about architecture and space.  It's fun.  It's different.  (I hope.)

Whatever it is, you can certainly go hear me try to explain the way I see the world.

M.

I am a happy camper.

As my roommates can attest, I was cheering all the way through Best Actor, Actress, Director, and Picture.  I was especially excited for Best Picture.  I wanted The King's Speech to win, but I thought for sure it was a toss-up between Inception and Black Swan.

I'm so very glad I was wrong.

m.

Poster

Things are getting all turned around.

Even though next week is supposed to be midterms, I don't have anything.  It's all this week.  However, all things considered, it's not that bad.

The way my schedule works is I have something every week (for the most part) instead of a bunch of things in one week.

For example: a test in complex one week, a paper due in theatre the next, then a test in geometry in week three, then a test (complex) and midterm in-class essays the next week, which happens to be this week.  I'm currently working my way through the prompts my theatre prof will ask tomorrow, finally (finally!) reaping the rewards of being an obsessive note-taker and having a freakishly good memory for remembering what happens in books.  (And yet, oddly enough, it takes me a solid three weeks to learn one person's name.)

Even though I have the essays tomorrow and my complex test on Friday, I partially took yesterday off.  I think, though, that it may have something to do with the way my classes went.

I showed up to advanced geo at 8:00 yesterday morning to find colored paper everywhere.  We then proceeded to make butterfly bombs.  (You can see one in action here.  I don't yet have the guts to do it to mine.  The thing took a solid twenty minutes to put together.)

And as a side note: I was telling Tess about butterfly bombs, and she said her first thought upon hearing the term was some kind of shot with vodka and glitter.  Although I prefer what we did, I like that I have friends with excessively active imaginations.

I then went to subversive theatre, where we spent about 10%-20% of the class listening to Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd.  There was context, I swear.  Tom Stoppard kind of context, too.

Then I spent two hours trying to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube (my goal is to know technically how to do it by break)--hint, orientation is everything--and concluded the day by listening to Ken Burns speak.  No, he wasn't on tv, he was on stage in our auditorium.  He talked primarily about his WWII documentary and a bit about the Civil War, but his thesis (hey, I'm in essay mode here) was:

If history is about remembering, then war is about forgetting.

Listening to him was a lot, I imagine, what it would have been like to hear Lincoln speak.  He was highly eloquent and succinct, and he had almost a triple cadence instead of a double when he spoke, so his sentences rolled into each other.

And he said some pretty good stuff, too.

m.

And did I mention?  It's barely dropped below freezing in the past week and a half.  We even got up to 61 degrees last week.

Can someone please explain how this happened?

You know how you have a switchboard that runs your life?  Dials for "sleep," "stress," "caffeine level," you know, stuff like that.
Okay, fine then.  I have one, at least.

I'm not totally sure how the "homework," "busy," and "stress" buttons got turned up and the "run like you're going to be late, because you probably are" button got hit, but it's all happened.  Just this week, I've had a group project due, a presentation, and a paper, and that's not including all of my usual homework, choreographing a dance for Rugcutters (Coe's swing dance club) to perform at Formal, teaching said choreography, plus teaching basic swing, tutoring, or the occasional things I do for fun, like going to talks on Langton's Ants or row-reduced matrices (and the only reason I get to call them "fun" instead of "homework" is because I currently don't need the extra points for my math classes).

It occurs to me:
Classes:
-History of Western Architecture (okay, I'm auditing it because (1) I've already taken it, and (2) I need the information on Gothic and Renaissance cathedrals for my thesis)
-Complex Analysis (evil most evilistist class of evil ever invented)
-Advanced Geometry
-Fiction Workshop
-Honors: Subversive Theatre (fascinating.  It's all about theatre in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia communist rule)

It also occurs to me the only reason I'm writing this now is because I'm procrastinating on my paper for Subversive Theatre on Vaclav Havel's The Hotel.  Sadly, my thesis cannot be: "Havel lost his touch for this play, as all of the meaning comes from Pechar's singing the theme from Doctor Zhivago through the whole thing."

m.

Light, literally and metaphorically. And lots of puns.

About two months ago, the internet blew up.

Okay, so that's not quite true.  I'm still on it.  Case in point.
What I mean when I say "the internet blew up" is really "my friends made a really, really big deal about the soundtrack to a new movie coming out."
Movie?

Music?  

 

Now, I'm all for soundtracks that fit the movie.  I don't want to watch anything of Austen's with a punk-rock score, and, let's be honest, an organ just doesn't fit with anything in Iron Man.
However, we're talking about a band called Daft Punk.  I like Simon & Garfunkel.  The Beatles.  Butch Walker.  Rufus Wainwright.
So when all of my friends (it seemed) went completely mad for this new soundtrack, practically foaming at the mouth, I didn't really pay attention.  Well, until the third time or so I heard about it, and then it just became irritating.

I was wrong.
So very wrong.

Today was my first Saturday night back at Coe, and a group of us went out to Sushi House (even better when you've been craving salmon tempura maki since November) and then to the movies.  And we went to see Tron.

Overall, I didn't much care for the movie.  I haven't seen the original, so there were some things that didn't make any sense (starting with the title).  And there were some other things, too.  From my understanding, everything in the Grid is a Program (except for the Users--which, incidentally, doesn't make Clu's genocide a genocide.  A Program, at least the way I think about it, isn't a sentient being).
A Program is code.  Code is binary--a series of ones and zeros.  Near the end of the movie, one of the Programs falls into a sea, and (from my understanding--again, not having seen the original) drowns.
One: how is it binary is affected by water?  And two: if it is, why have a sea?
I suppose most of my complaints have to do with the fact that everything in the Grid is binary.  That kind of ruins emotional attachment.  I'm not one to hug my computer.

Anyway.  The movie earned a resounding "meh" from me, but I feel in love with the music.  I don't like electronic sounding music, but Daft Punk and their 85-piece orchestra was sheer brilliance.
It's very consistent in basic form, but then it gets layered, almost like building blocks.  However, they also manage to keep it fairly minimalistic, in keeping with the visual simplicity of the movie.  In addition, the music fits into the film nearly seamlessly--one of the best I've seen/heard, if not the best.
It stands well on its own as well (listen here, and start with track four to hear what they've done with the original).

Final score:
The movie barely squeaked by in earning its $9.25.  I would gladly pay that for the soundtrack, though, and may do just that.
But the extra $3.00 for 3D is so very, very painfully not worth it.  [Did you hear that, Disney?  STOP THE 3D INSANITY!]

m.

And, just for the record, Cillian Murphy appears in one scene in the movie and is uncredited (according to IMDB).  I caught it, and knew who he was.

Istanbul Archeology Museum

[Statue of a woman] 

[Statue of Marsyas] 

[Bust of Sappho] 

[Bust of Sappho] 

[Busts of various emperors]

[Frieze of Athena] 

[Statue of Euterpe, Greek muse of music] 

[Statue of Apollo]

[Statue of a muse]

[Statue of a woman]

[Alexander Sarcophagus]

[Alexander Sarcophagus]

[Sarcophagus of Mourning Women]

m.

Topkapı

[Hagia Eirene with Ayasofya in background]

[carvings waiting for repairs]

[tiles in Harem entry hall]

[Harem entry] 

[Tile detail in Harem]

[Venetian mirror in Harem]

[Courtyard of Wives in Harem]

[Mother Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[Tile detail in Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[Galata Tower from Sultan's chambers in Harem]

[One of the Twin Pavilions in Harem]

[In courtyard outside Twin Pavilions]

[Anatolia (Asian Istanbul; foreground) and New District (background)]

They wouldn't let me use my camera in the treasure rooms, but these are some of the things I saw (pilfered shamelessly from wherever I could find them).

[Topkapı Dagger, made famous by the movie Topkapı.]

[The Spoonmaker's Diamond/Kaşıkçı Elması, the fourth largest diamond in the world at 86 carats]

[A headdress.  I can only assume this photo was taken quickly when all the guards were looking in a different direction, since it's somewhat difficult to tell that the square in the middle is not a hole.  It's an emerald, the short edge about the length of my pinky finger.]

My favorite piece doesn't seem to have an existence on the internet at all.  It's an emerald--not too big, maybe two inches in diameter--carved into a box.  There's metal on the bottom so it can sit, and along the edges so it can close and latch, but other than that, it's just one impressive emerald.

m.