now, i’m not a high-paid civic planner, but i’d like to present this fine piece of work:

i’m just one of the vulgar masses that drives on the (ugh) Public Roadways and parking lots, so i guess i really don’t know very much about, you know, traffic patterns or, say, parking lot spacing…. but i must say that the curbed island completely surrounding the parking spot in the fore is a nice touch to the half-spots to the right. maybe if CompUSA had a better parking lot planner they wouldn’t be going out of business? nah, probably if they didn’t sell things at +1/3 to twice the original cost, you know… that would help.

this a couple of days after being ordered to surrender visitor’s records. what really concerns me is that there is very little coverage of it…. it’s in Cheney’s offices (albeit ceremonial, but staff do work there..), doesn’t that seem just a little suspicious?

Fire Controlled at White House Compound

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thick black smoke billowed from a fire Wednesday in Vice President Dick Cheney’s suite of offices in the historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.

Cheney’s office was damaged by smoke and water from fire hoses, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said. The vice president was not in the building at the time; he was in the West Wing of the White House with President Bush.

More than 1,000 people who work in the building were evacuated. The fire broke out on the second floor of the building around about 9:15 a.m. and was under control within a half hour, District of Columbia fire department spokesman Alan Etter said.

Afterward, Bush and Cheney appeared on West Executive Avenue, between the White House and the damaged building, to thank District of Columbia firefighters. A fire tanker nearby still had its ladder extended to a window on the blackened second floor.

The blaze was located in Cheney’s suite of ceremonial offices. His working office is in the West Wing. Secret Service spokesman Darrin Blackford said the building was evacuated as a precaution. District of Columbia firefighters poured water on the blaze, broke windows and moved furniture onto a balcony.

There were no reports of serious injuries, Etter said. A U.S. Marine stationed at the building smashed a fifth-floor window to escape from the smoke and had to be rescued from the ledge, he said. The man suffered a minor cut to his hand.

The building remained evacuated while firefighters ventilated the smoke, Etter said. The displaced employees were sent to other offices or went home.
The extent of water, fire and smoke damage was unclear.

Investigators were working to determine the cause of the blaze, Etter said. The smoke appeared to come from an electrical closet on the building’s second floor.

The Executive Office Building, a commanding structure with a granite, slate and cast iron exterior at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street, houses the Office of Management and Budget and staff of the National Security Council and other agencies.
Originally built for the State, War and Navy Departments between 1871 and 1888, the building was renamed in honor of President Dwight Eisenhower during the Clinton administration.

sounds like a gasket blew in the bullshit factory and all the feces got mixed together….
from usatoday:

Chemical explosion at Fox News HQs in Manhattan

There was a “chemical explosion” this morning at the headquarters of Fox News Channel in Manhattan, according to CNN.

The network, which says it confirmed this report with the fire department, is reporting that four floors were evacuated. Some 700 people have fled the building, including at least one person who was burned in the blast, the local Fox station reports.

Update at 11:47 a.m. ET: Fox News Channel is still broadcasting. The network reports that the chemical explosion occurred on the 45th floor of the building.

Updates at 11:52 a.m. ET: WNYW-TV says there are “reports that the explosion happened in a cooling station in the building.”

Update at 12:45 p.m. ET: The Associated Press is reporting that fire department officials say it was a small explosion on the 45th floor. It was caused by an interaction between two chemicals, the wire service says.

how’s that for december weather? it was at least 70F today, not exactly what i have come to expect from kentucky weather…it seems it’s generally unpredictable, but 70! 70 and not 350 miles to my west there’s wicked ice storms…of course, it’s being played as WORST ICE EVAR over there, and for that region i imagine being unprepared has something to do with it….but then when we had a similar thing go on a few years back the state wasn’t offering us generators, or even shelters…

so, as of last saturday i’ve been married for as many years as there are days in the week. what’s the traditional anniversary gift for 7 years? last year it was candy or iron…this year looks like it is Wool or Copper.. that works out, just got a pashmina shawl!

in the meantime i have re-read Tropic of Cancer, first time in a decade or so, with new insights, and i have come to many conclusions about it, i’ll list a couple here:

Tropic of Cancer is indeed a modern piece of literature. it’s hard to imagine what life would be like without that kind of worded surrealism, and the book does indeed belong with other works of 20th century lit..despite the protestations of some, and it’s even harder to imagine that the voice is from the 1930s. that being said, i respect the book, i even like it, but i prefer the words of Kerouac or Ginsburg some 10+ years later.

Miller, just like everyone else in the world, was complicated; and just like the grand majority of people we don’t really know much about him apart from what he presented to the world and how contemporaries perceived him. his private life has mostly been kept private, his self that wasn’t chronicled by him in his books is effectively lost. other people who may or may not have had their own ambitions or reasons for giving us snapshots only detract from what we actually know. at the time of Tropic of Cancer there were few people who could give memoir, and it seems like all of them saw different facets. from other people’s memories of him then, and from the words he himself gives in Tropic of Cancer i’ve finally come to the conclusion that whatever he may have become after Cancer and Capricorn, during those times he was pathetic. thats how he presented himself in that time, and that’s how written memory has perceived him….romantic, yes, but deeply pathetic; and that’s what makes him a great human and a great writer.

i think, with that in mind, that people emulating or romanticizing Miller in Paris during the depression are subjecting themselves to being pathetic by design. now, people emulating Miller’s writing style *are* pathetic..the only benefit to using Miller’s style is that of the few people who read books to read them, there will be an even smaller amount of people who know who he was or can recognize his style..as opposed to other 20th century writers like H.S. Thompson, Kerouac, or Steinbeck…. with that benefit it would be easier to pass the style off as one’s own.

since finishing Tropic of Cancer i’ve picked back up on Frida Kahlo, yet another incredibly complicated person. to her merit she has not only the rich collection of paintings but also diaries and letters to wade through. i was pretty neutral about Kahlo until about 1-1/2 years ago when life led me to The Broken Column:

i deeply understand this work, and since then i’ve been wondering what it takes in a person to be able to portray it. it’s not evident in her work as a whole, what drove her to make The Broken Column and many others in a similar vein, as she tried every style she felt necessary or possible to try, but when you look at something like this you instincively know that the person who painted it knew pain intimately. intimately enough to be excruciatingly articulate. what draws people like me to her work is the feeling that someone has documented precisely what they feel. in one word: “exactly.”

the flag says “Tree of hope, remain strong”

“…and the scars which those surgeon sons of bitches landed me with”

as i go deeper into her personal life i’m finding we have more in common than i would like to admit. her ideas about life, medicine, friends, family and patriotism are very similar to mine, right down to the deeper reasons we both keep animals. it’s daunting sometimes to find out that your own life has not only already been done, but probably better than you can ever manage. if this has been portrayed so well as to not need further explanation, what do i have left in the realm of painting… other than abstracts? if i do venture into this territory i think it will not only be a pale comparison but i’ll also feel like a repetitive hack.