Saturday, 22
It happened coincidentally... I was reading Kierkegaard Either/Or and about him, Philosopher of the Heart by Clare Carlisle. Both as samples. Only when I know I really need and will read it I buy the full version. Well, when I had finished the sample about Kierkegaard's life, I continued reading his own work. To do it more properly I decided to change from sofa position with tablet to working position at my computer that is placed in the studio downstairs. Unfortunately, later, sitting at my desk in the studio, I realized that I hadn't used the kindle app for a long time, not since I bought the computer in 2013. As a matter of fact, I found only two items there. Further, it wasn't possible to sync in order to download my newer acquisitions (more than hundred by now). My OS version is too old to be able to update the app. For any reasons that I cannot explain at the moment, I don't want to upgrade to Sierra. Hence, I had to accept that I couldn't read Kierkegaard the way I had imagined. With sadness in my eyes I starred at those two icons displayed by the library; Nigeria. The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture, which was marked as read in the right corner at the top, and Memoirs of Tennessee Williams, which I once downloaded fully, but never had read. Okay, I said to myself, why not trying the Memoirs. And very quickly I got sucked in Williams' smooth narrative. He is jumping a lot in topic and time. Sometimes I lose orientation and don't know if it is about the time he was actually in while writing, or back in the past. Written in the seventies there are a lot of lust and self-understanding adventures, open talk about sex and his (late) coming out. Yesterday, reaching The Glass Menagerie, which he titles just menagerie, I realised that I didn't know anything about this play that seemed to be of significance. As youTube offers the movie for free, I couldn't escape and watched it. Terrified by the mom's behaviour of excessive propriety - I even felt somehow mirrored by her attention seeking personality that seemed to know one and only her point of view (as I am living together with a man who could be my son from the stance of age I acquired the notion of being responsible for his future. On the other hand I try to perceive us on the same level. To explain myself I often present stories from my past that must bore him to death. Or I advice him to cover the pot when he is cooking rice. I try hard to stop that and I am getting better I hope) - I suffered. I couldn't even believe that I found myself watching that kind of white American Hollywood production with genuine interest. Watching a film is different from reading a book, of course. You get the writer only in the book closely, but the content I could grasp and the movie in black and white wasn't of bad quality. Anyway, at the end of the film I was relieved. I had finished it. By the way, Kierkegaard is still on my reading list.
Monday, 3
Staircases can be perspicaciously complex. The staircase is one place where architects visually and physically connect people within buildings, and where they can directly reveal critical thinking in relation to a building's form and its function. The staircase is a significant form of public space, not to be underestimated in creating or curtailing human activity and engagement. No multi-story building can avoid them. The staircase is unequivocally shared. Within them, individuals interact not only with the physicality of the building but with each other, directly: acknowledge one another, look at each other, talk to one another as they causally pass by one another. They are spaces where people move together, even if awkwardly going up and down. Unlike a façade, which typically has a singular function to protect the interior from the exterior, the stair enables a multitude of uses and experiences.
Notes on Staircases, Hilary Sample e-flux architecture
Photo by Maria Anastasiou
Sunday, 2
Because of the heavy rainfall some blocks of the balustrade are softening and finally drop out. I draw everyone's attention to the fact that it is dangerous at this point.
you see how different day and night dream can be. my daydream (found at my last entry in archive/diary/2020 june, july) of covering the balustrade with a mosaic and this dream evoked by my subconscious