hippoblog

final nest

Nest no more. Joseph Holtzman has decided he's getting bored and doesn't feel like fronting the millions of dollars it takes to keep the mag afloat. Bummer.

* Ray, 8/21/2004 01:21:29 PM
(0) comments

(T)error

Interesting, maybe obvious timeline of terror alerts, juxtaposed with embarassing political events, at Julius Blog. Glad someone did it.

* Ray, 8/21/2004 01:08:31 PM
(0) comments

cup 'o cat

According to food writer Stewart Lee Allen, the most expensive cup of joe in the world is Kopi Luwak, or what used to be called "Monkey Shit Coffee." The story went that monkeys in Africa used to eat indigestible young coffee beans and defecate a highly-caffinated puree of great distinction. The animal concerned is, in reality, a marsupial called the paradoxurus; it is an indonesian tree-dwelling civet cat. It eats the beans, which undergo a chemical reaction with its stomach juices to produce what is said to be a singularly wonderful flavor.

Kopi Luwak sells for around $75 for a quarter pound, and can be bought from M.P. Mountanos, 800-229-1611.

* joshua, 8/20/2004 02:32:46 AM
(0) comments

Big Box Residential

According to this article Target has commissioned Michael Graves to make prefab:

Ubiquitous designer Michael Graves is offering three prefab "pavilions" of varying degrees of modernity through Target. Costing $10,000 to $26,000, the customizable kits are produced by Lindal Cedar Homes and can be used as offices, guest rooms or what have you.

I'd much rather live in a big cmu retail box. One day all those Wal-Marts and Home Depots are going to be empty, and then certain architects are going to want to turn them into homes, the way they've been trying to do (for years) with shipping containers. Another idea I have is to lease out vacant shopping mall retail space as residential. Ever look at just how deep those mall stores are (including storage)?

Huh, I just noticed this nytimes article today, Shopping on 1, Sleeping on 2. Some eyepopping examples of residential-over-massive-retail.

Oh, this reminds me, someone ought to survey the Duane Reade's in NYC. (1) There seem to be way too many to be profitable. (2) The layouts are downright Piranesian. There's one by my place, on 86th, that feels like walking through a small intestine.

* Ray, 8/19/2004 10:57:46 AM
(0) comments

catalan food

Artist Marti Guixe has just put out a cookbook. Limited to 3000 copies, the book contains some recipes which could give Heston Blumenthal a run for his money. Guixe's products include "post-it chips" (chips stuck to the wall in a convenient location),
edible wallpaper, and "Camper cakes" (round cookies given an interesting surface texture with the stamp of a Camper shoe). He doesn't show any knowledge of food whatsoever, which might irk some folks, but I'm ignorant and find it all pretty amusing.

By coincidence, he also suggests "reforestation snacks"--small balls with seeds and coffee, which you eat and then crap out (with seeds and such) in nature to reforest. Strangely enough, Lekker's been pushing this idea in the form of a regionally-specific dog food infused with seeds from under-represented plant species. This was meant to be a guerilla tactic to improve community parks, which are invariably boring (not to mention monocultural). The idea came about when I saw two GIS maps--one which correlates high dog ownership to poor neighborhoods; and another, which correlates reclaimed brownfield parks to poor neighborhoods. I tried pitching this idea to Peter del Tredici of the Arnold Arboretum to get him to join as a consultant. He didn't write back.

* joshua, 8/18/2004 11:26:23 PM
(0) comments

done right this time

Hedgehog's Prada building in Aoyama came out really, really well. This one is quite different from Rem's toothless SoHo effort. It's not a sheep in wolf's clothing. This building's innovations are genuinely innovative, and they're carefully integrated into a whole that's more than the sum of its bits. Shing and I also really liked the fact that H & deM chose to shift their aesthetic towards an almost-camp Japanese futurism. And the floating tubes (actually stockrooms and seating areas) really read. Slick.

* joshua, 8/18/2004 10:29:29 PM
(1) comments

new in Japan

Here are a couple of the new consumables that Shing and I spotted in Tokyo last week:

The latest manifestation of the Japanese love of beetles is this new "insect fighting system." Two different types of remote controlled beetles--with either pincers or a spine-hammer--go at each other on a plastic stump until one is flipped over onto its carapace with its legs flailing in the air.

Apparently, these folks don't just want fresh breath. They want fresh breath with a particular flavor. This "breath-palette" offers a wide range of fruit-smells to this end, as well as "Indo Curry," "L'Espresso," and "Pumpkin Pudding." There are thirty-two to choose from.

These toilet seat and cover sets are a featured item at Tokyu Hands' Shibuya store. You wouldn't think that a lot of people would want to take a shit on a seat with embedded razor blades and thumb-tacks; but then you'd be wrong, wouldn't you?

* joshua, 8/18/2004 03:38:24 AM
(0) comments

ouch.

Over the years, we at the Hippo have had a few good laughs at the expense of professional critics. We've counted their affectations (many), and searched for their overall benefits as a species (few).

But we're rank amateurs. Jonathan Swift was the pro. In his Tale of a Tub, Swift devotes a whole chapter to giving critics the definitive skewering. I think it's pretty much the last word on the topic. Have a look at the following, in which he recounts Pausanias' opinion of the origin of criticism. The emphases are his own:

"He says, they were a race of men who delighted to nibble at the superfluities and excrescencies of books; which the learned at length observing, took warning of their own accord, to lop the luxuriant, the rotten, the dead, the sapless, and the overgrown branches from their works. But now, all this he cunningly shades under the following allegory; that the Nauplians in Argia learned the art of pruning their vines by observing, then when an ASS had browsed upon one of them, it thrived the better and bore better fruit..."

Apparently, these "asses" are not good for anything--not even beaing eaten:

"I think nothing can be plainer, that in the western part of Libya, there were ASSES with HORNS...whereas all other ASSES wanted a gall, these horned ones were so redundant in that part of their flesh was not to be eaten because of its extreme bitterness."

* joshua, 8/17/2004 10:17:39 PM
(0) comments

Shibam

Yeah, okay, I have to apologize. That Chucky thing was only supposed to be a one-day gag. Then I left town for a wee bit. Oops.

So, to make it up to you, here's something interesting: The city of Shibam, or 'Al Bilad,' in Yemen, is an architectural wonder little known outside the Arab world. Built on the ruins of a former conurbation--the old Shibam was the political capital of Wadi Hadramut between the 4th century B.C.E. and the year 1520--it is a city of high-rise buildings built entirely out of mud-brick. Approximately 500 towers remain, some as high as 15-18 storeys in height.

For a good description of Shibam, as well as the other mud-brick cities of Yemen, have a look at Salma Samar Damluji's tome, "The Valley of Mud Brick Architecture: Shibam, Tarim & Wadi Hadramut," Garnet Press, 1992.

* joshua, 8/17/2004 09:53:02 PM
(0) comments

X

Search hippoblog's favorite design sites

archives:
08.24.2003... 08.31.2003... 09.07.2003... 09.14.2003... 09.21.2003... 09.28.2003... 10.05.2003... 10.12.2003... 10.19.2003... 10.26.2003... 11.02.2003... 11.09.2003... 11.16.2003... 11.23.2003... 11.30.2003... 12.07.2003... 12.14.2003... 12.21.2003... 12.28.2003... 01.04.2004... 01.11.2004... 01.18.2004... 01.25.2004... 02.01.2004... 02.08.2004... 02.15.2004... 02.22.2004... 02.29.2004... 03.07.2004... 03.14.2004... 03.21.2004... 03.28.2004... 04.04.2004... 04.11.2004... 04.18.2004... 04.25.2004... 05.02.2004... 05.09.2004... 05.16.2004... 05.23.2004... 05.30.2004... 06.06.2004... 06.13.2004... 06.20.2004... 06.27.2004... 07.04.2004... 07.11.2004... 07.18.2004... 08.01.2004... 08.08.2004... 08.15.2004... 08.22.2004... 08.29.2004... 09.05.2004... 09.12.2004... 09.19.2004... 09.26.2004... 10.03.2004... 10.10.2004... 10.17.2004... 10.24.2004... 10.31.2004... 11.07.2004... 11.14.2004... 11.21.2004... 11.28.2004... 12.05.2004... 12.12.2004... 12.19.2004... 01.02.2005... 01.09.2005... 01.16.2005... 01.23.2005... 01.30.2005... 02.06.2005... 02.13.2005... 02.20.2005... 02.27.2005... 03.06.2005... 03.13.2005... 03.20.2005... 03.27.2005... 04.03.2005... 04.10.2005... 04.17.2005... 04.24.2005... 05.01.2005... 05.08.2005... 05.15.2005... 05.22.2005... 05.29.2005... 06.05.2005... 06.12.2005... 06.19.2005... 06.26.2005... 07.03.2005... 07.10.2005... 07.17.2005... 07.24.2005... 07.31.2005... 08.07.2005... 08.14.2005... 08.21.2005... 08.28.2005... 09.04.2005... 09.11.2005... 09.18.2005... 09.25.2005... 10.02.2005... 10.09.2005... 10.16.2005... 10.30.2005... 11.06.2005... 11.13.2005... 11.20.2005... 11.27.2005... 12.04.2005... 12.11.2005... 12.18.2005... 12.25.2005... 01.01.2006... 01.08.2006... 01.15.2006... 01.22.2006... 01.29.2006... 02.05.2006... 02.12.2006... 02.19.2006... 02.26.2006... 03.05.2006... 03.12.2006... 03.19.2006... 03.26.2006... 04.02.2006... 04.09.2006... 04.16.2006... 04.23.2006... 04.30.2006... 05.07.2006... 05.14.2006... 05.21.2006... 05.28.2006... 06.11.2006... 06.18.2006... 06.25.2006... 07.02.2006... 07.09.2006... 07.16.2006... 07.23.2006... 08.13.2006... 08.20.2006... 08.27.2006... 09.10.2006... 09.24.2006... 10.01.2006... 10.08.2006... 10.15.2006... 10.22.2006... 10.29.2006... 11.05.2006... 11.12.2006... 11.19.2006... 11.26.2006...

LINKS
Search hippoblog
Hippogoogle
Ray

FRIENDS LEKKERdesign
ditherdog

DESIGN
WMMNA
Future Feeder
Kaliber10000
Pruned
things magazine
Archinect
Inhabitat
int'ive architecture
arcspace
MoCo Loco
R.E.
dezain
IDFuel
CORE77
Simplicity
Thinking
designboom
Architecture Buzz
Record News
Arbitare
A Daily Dose
agglutinations
atlas(t)
Infosthetics
Jalopnik
Cartype

TRICKS
Lifehacker
MAKE

MUSIC
createdigitalmusic
City of Sound
Aurgasm
Zoe Radio

TRAVEL
SideStep
Mobissimo
Gridskipper
NY Airfares

STRONG NEWS
Foreign Policy
3quarksdaily
CSMonitor
News Dissector
Atrios
Tom Tomorrow
Dreyfuss Report

MILD NEWS
Boing Boing
MetaFilter
Wired
Slashdot
Gizmodo
Cin-o-Matic

ADVERTISEMENTS