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Sort of. These are cool, and the ones with the "library" and "museum" logos benefit, respectively, the New York Public Library and the Museum of Modern Art.
A quick note to pass on word about a benefit that Chaki's band Mystic Defender is playing -- the purpose is to generate enough money to preserve Dome Village, "a non-profit organization which offers a structural alternative for homeless people unable or even unwilling to live in traditional shelters or return to the 'mainstream' life style." The 20 Omni-Sphere geodesic domes that make up the village were designed by a one-time student of Bucky Fuller. The site's landlord, responding to the shocking surge in downtown land values, has raised the tenant's rent by 700 percent, or as a Downtown News article states, from "$2,500 a month (plus $10,000 in annual taxes) to more than $18,000 a month."
While I don't agree with the across-the-board assertion of founder and soi-disant Republican Ted Hayes (who himself is homeless) that homelessness is a choice and a full-stop rejection of mainstream values, I appreciate that countercultural ethic (I've been learning about the street politics of the post-neoliberal world and trying to steal material from Neil Smith's The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City for an upcoming paper). I'm torn between applauding the hyper-romanticized outlaw nobility of the hobo/squatter aesthetic and the fact that Hayes' survivalist-wackjob philosophies trivialize the very real plight most homeless people have, namely mental illness and addiction and just plain horrible circumstances. His project's emphasis on self-sustainability and personal responsibility is admirable though -- if a little uncomfortably like a bizarro-world Ayn Rand. But for those homeless people who have all their mental faculties intact and didn't get their legs blown off in a war and have even a smidgen of optimism about their future, Dome Village's "workshops in computer literacy, jobseeking, legal issues, and children's theatre, a community art program, two cricket teams, [and] community garden programs" may very well prove useful.
R.I.P. Seymour Rosen (pictured left).
OK, well, we didn't end up going to the Pacific Design Center, but Geeta and I (and a couple of friends of hers from UCLA and Caltech, respectively) were elsewhere within the MOCA system yesterday -- at the main location downtown, for Rauschenberg's Combines exhibit.
I had seen it just after I moved to Los Angeles in late May, and since it closes in a few days (on September 4), I was glad to have one final look. It's a beautiful, beautiful collection, created from 1954-1964 and getting more poignant with each passing year as the objects of Rauschenberg's media continue to yellow, fade, distance themselves through dated typography and design and persistent disuse. Yesterday I compared it to the water-damaged detritus stuck to the floorboards of an old person's attic -- things that were never meant to last 50 years, but which stamped themselves into the house like a printing press would, to tell the real story. Here's how I recommended it to someone in May (forgive the lowercase; I often type this way informally):
i was in awe and more than a bit emotional. the general feeling is of walking through rural salvage yards and church-owned thrift stores circa 1960. very impressionistic -- rather than being presented as one tritely iconic image (like warhol's soup cans), these muddy fabric swatches and scrap metal shards and cartoon clippings and bird feathers are basically momentary blips in the radio static of the painted canvases. it was one of the only art exhibits i've been to where i wished there was more, lots more, several rooms more.
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