;)
Tuesday
Sep292009
Because The Next Post Will Also Have To Do With Someone's Birth, And I Don't Care How Well One Writes A Birthday Post, An Entire Month Of Them Is Just Too Much. So We'll Talk About Bricks Instead.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 2:24AM
Because bricks are quite handy. You can throw them at thy foes, you can trip over them, breaking your big toe and getting to use the crutches that you've always thought everyone looked so cool using, and all you have to suffer through is some armpit chaffing. Also, a broken big toe. You can deliver that crucial memo from the 14th story of your office building to the 3rd story of your office building with lightening-fast efficiency by using nothing more than a $0.002 rubber band and any old brick you find laying around. Or kill your boss. Either way, you'll be in line for a promotion.
I like bricks. More specifically, I liked aesthetically pleasing configurations of bricks. Did you know that I once had an aptitude for and a very promising career rut carved out for me in mechanical engineering? True story. You wouldn't believe what I could do with a ruler. In fact, if I had enough balls to go digging through my storage closet that is most likely, by now, host to 3 out of 5 of Canada's most deadly spiders, also my Christmas decorations, I'd be able to find a stack of old blueprints with, like, 1990 written in the date. And drawn in pencil. *gasp* See, back in the stone ages when I was dipping my pen in the blueprint ink, people still used drafting tables and mechanical pencils and T-squares. Now there are twenty four versions of Autocad out there. I once bought Autocad for Dummies, thinking it might be fun to try my hand at it again, and I couldn't understand the acknowledgments page of the book.
You know, it's kind of messed up that the very same people who can doodle out an entire city, or an aircraft, or a satellite in their spare time can't think of a way to make the lead in mechanical pencils stronger than a dried spaghetti stick.
An then I married an Ivy League architecture major and we've been happily employed in the restaurant industry ever since. At least my wasted education was free.
But we do both find ourselves drawn to the linear. The only pictures we have hanging in our living room are of houses, or parts of them. My bathroom has a big ass schematic of the Brooklyn Bridge hanging in it. All of the furniture is square and all of the frames are level. We're sort of neurotically straight, actually. The clutter all over every square inch of our lives offsets it nicely, though.
I also find myself, on occasion, taking pictures of buildings. I'm normally a portrait sort of girl; I wouldn't take a picture of grass or water drops unless there was someone in it. Every know and then, however, I find some building that strikes my fancy and I can't help myself but shoot it. Like in Mexico, when I found a cathedral with this entrance.
I actually love the fact that there's a big, fat thumb smudge right in the middle of that picture, so shut up. There's this building that I stumbled across in Chicago this summer.
Pretty freaking cool, isn't it? There's this shot of the Chinese Gardens in downtown Vancouver, and I love it because I can't decide if it's the very essence of serene or if it's the fucking creepiest sort of "crawling out of these trees to get you" picture.
Either way, I'll take it. My neighbor Anjou took this one in Cairo, but it's all rights reserved so if you want to see it, you'll have to click. It's totally worth it.
And this one I love, I love so much, because if there's anything I appreciate more than gorgeous detail, it's religious irony.
But holy crap is that every gorgeous. Even if it is in abject defiance of the second commandment.
I like bricks. More specifically, I liked aesthetically pleasing configurations of bricks. Did you know that I once had an aptitude for and a very promising career rut carved out for me in mechanical engineering? True story. You wouldn't believe what I could do with a ruler. In fact, if I had enough balls to go digging through my storage closet that is most likely, by now, host to 3 out of 5 of Canada's most deadly spiders, also my Christmas decorations, I'd be able to find a stack of old blueprints with, like, 1990 written in the date. And drawn in pencil. *gasp* See, back in the stone ages when I was dipping my pen in the blueprint ink, people still used drafting tables and mechanical pencils and T-squares. Now there are twenty four versions of Autocad out there. I once bought Autocad for Dummies, thinking it might be fun to try my hand at it again, and I couldn't understand the acknowledgments page of the book.
You know, it's kind of messed up that the very same people who can doodle out an entire city, or an aircraft, or a satellite in their spare time can't think of a way to make the lead in mechanical pencils stronger than a dried spaghetti stick.
An then I married an Ivy League architecture major and we've been happily employed in the restaurant industry ever since. At least my wasted education was free.
But we do both find ourselves drawn to the linear. The only pictures we have hanging in our living room are of houses, or parts of them. My bathroom has a big ass schematic of the Brooklyn Bridge hanging in it. All of the furniture is square and all of the frames are level. We're sort of neurotically straight, actually. The clutter all over every square inch of our lives offsets it nicely, though.
I also find myself, on occasion, taking pictures of buildings. I'm normally a portrait sort of girl; I wouldn't take a picture of grass or water drops unless there was someone in it. Every know and then, however, I find some building that strikes my fancy and I can't help myself but shoot it. Like in Mexico, when I found a cathedral with this entrance.
I actually love the fact that there's a big, fat thumb smudge right in the middle of that picture, so shut up. There's this building that I stumbled across in Chicago this summer.
Pretty freaking cool, isn't it? There's this shot of the Chinese Gardens in downtown Vancouver, and I love it because I can't decide if it's the very essence of serene or if it's the fucking creepiest sort of "crawling out of these trees to get you" picture.
Either way, I'll take it. My neighbor Anjou took this one in Cairo, but it's all rights reserved so if you want to see it, you'll have to click. It's totally worth it.
And this one I love, I love so much, because if there's anything I appreciate more than gorgeous detail, it's religious irony.
But holy crap is that every gorgeous. Even if it is in abject defiance of the second commandment.
Reader Comments (15)
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Ehem. Somehow, I learn more and more about you on a regular basis. Seriously? Rulers? Bricks? Mechanical-fucking-engineering?
I knew there was a brain in that gorgeous package.
I love bricks too. Specifically paving stones. Oh yeah, a nicely built brick building is great, but a paved cobblestone road makes me swoon. It is hell on everything, cars, high heels, bicycles, motocycles and don't even talk about what they are like in ice and snow, but MY GOD the feat of civil engineering that it represents, built by hand in most cases.
I have two paving stones I have collected: One was from a bridge that was the last milestone to cross before we reached my grandparents house in Minetto NY. I could be dead asleep in the car, but once we hit that bridge I knew we were almost there because of the vibration as we drove across it. When they dismantled the bridge for something more modern and not falling apart, my grandfather went and got me a brick. He never said much in his time with words, but he knew how to say I love you with gestures. The other one is from Athens OH, where the streets that run through Ohio University were paved by Chinese workers as they moved across the country building the train system. There was road work being done and I finagled a paving stone out of them. Back when my finagling charms still worked. Sigh.
I have a brick floor in my house. It's a herringbone pattern. It is awesome. Bulletproof with kids and dogs. It has a sealant over the (real) brick so it's easy to clean. Honestly, having it put in downstairs was one of the smartest things I've ever done. Love it!
Dude. You're hot. You take cool pictures. You can write. You make me laugh. What ELSE can you do? It's almost unfair how talented you are, dude.
Goddammit, those are some snazzy photos! You're, like, my photography god! I'm going to download them and use them on my blog. And having all those blueprints is really cool, I wish I had your house.
Whoops. There went number one, three, eight and ten, too.
I love the photos. Linear, but then I see the curves: the scrollwork, the arch, the pagoda roof peaks, the drape of the flags and chandelier mirroring the altar and domes above. Nice.
The periodic snap of the lead in mechanical pencils are of the devil. I am suspicious of anyone who writes with them.
Brick are also good for creating modern art out of crappy corporate buildings ;)
I'm totally going to quilt that black gate. Stunning.
Ohhhh love the cathedral in Mexico pic. .. .beautiful.
Also. . .bricks. Yes. As I was looking for something classic/cool/ not trendy to clad my fireplace and pantry walls with I came across a company that shaves the front 1/4 inch off bricks from old downtown office buildings in Chicago after they are torn down. .. .so you get the bits with all the character/bullet holes and cracks but without all the weight. They are pretty sweet. .. .our brick layer thought they would look like crap. .. but he was wrong. .. plus he doesn't get to tell people that Al Capone probably shot at his wall. . .!
the fact that all the pictures in your house are of straight lines and are in square frames makes me feel calm inside. and they are all hung properly, i bet. ahhhhh.. thank you.
oh, and i love those pictures too. i know, i probably should have said that first, but it's that pesky OCD, whaddyagonnado?
Oh, the symmetry of that church-type place. It soothes.
Didja know that I used to want to be a brick layer? I really convinced myself for about two months that I would find it a really peaceful occupation.
What beautiful pictures. :) I love architectural images.
Wow! Your posts never fail to make me smile. They are really enjoyable. I like the way you write them. So fun!