Creative school funding

At DonorsChoose you can support thousands of projects submitted by public school teachers for just a few bucks. More here.

Urban Cactus

Urban Cactus is a housing project in the Vuurplaat section of Rotterdam by UCX Architects / Ben Huygen and Jasper Jaegers and done for Vestia Rotterdam Feijenoord/Estrade Projecten. More.

12,150 cups of pudding = 1,215,000 miles

David Phillips purchased over 1.2 million frequent flyer miles for just under $2400, which has allowed him and his family to fly to over 20 countries for free. More.

Birdie Bed

Consumer Law no. 7: If you can't find the price of a piece of merchandise, you probably can't afford it.

Perfect pitch?

Or tone deaf? Find out here.

The Antikythera mechanism

The Antikythera mechanism (Greek: O μηχανισμός των Αντικυθήρων transliterated as O mēchanismós tōn Antikythērōn) is an ancient mechanical analog computer (as opposed to digital computer) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to about 80 BC.

Painting in PJs

In defense of The Valley

Valley state of mind
Michele Miles Gardiner, Daily News

THE San Fernando Valley is constantly portrayed in the media — and by those who dwell on the other side of the hill — as nothing more than a sun-baked wasteland of mini mall-strewn streets under a tangle of wires and smog. The place where only illiterate meth addicts, porn stars and frosted-haired simpletons would choose to live, where cuisine no more exotic than canned ravioli can be found, and where the suburban sprawl is consuming us Valley dwellers under its mass, oozing over us until we suffocate beneath it, rendering our brains (what little brain matter we have) useless. Continued . . .

Mary Blair

Yes, the It's A Small World tune gets old fast, but, when I was a kid, I fondly remember the illustrations of Mary Blair - especially the ones she did for Little Golden books. Disney hired her to design the IASW ride at Disneyland, but, she did a lot more.

Bomb Shelter Chic

The Underground Fortress is an 8th wonder of the world! It is an unbelievable feat of engineering. The Fortress goes a total of 45 feet under the house! That is below sea level! Read on . . .

Ice cream in a nutshell

Everything you ever wanted to know about ice cream. Possibly.

And then there's this little ditty by Johnson, Moll & King:

In the land of ice and snow
Up among the Eskimo
There's a college known as Oogie-wawa.
You should hear those college boys
Gee, they make an awful noise
When they sing their Eskimo tra la la.
They've got a leader, big cheerleader, oh what a guy!
He's got a frozen face just like an Eskimo Pie.
When he says, "Come on, let's go!"
Though it's forty-five below
Listen what those Eskimo all holler:
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah, rah . . . Oogie de wawa rah rah rah!
Tuesday, Monday, we all scream for Sundae!
Sis, boom, Aurora borealea, bah!
Boola boola
Sasparoola
We've got the chocolate
I'll take vanoolla
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah, rah, ice cream soda or gingerale pop!

Listpic

Listpic is a cool mashup that lets you browse classified listings on Craigslist by just looking at the photos. Read on . . .

'ello Kitty

Language abuse

Excerpt from product description on Amazon.com: "This simple elegant design makes enjoyable bird feeding experiences for value oriented consumers."

It's a bird feeder!

Coloring's more fun with two

Hakka Round-Houses

Hakka architecture is a building style in southern China unique to the Hakka people. They are typically designed for defensive purposes and consist of one entrance and no windows at ground level. More here.

Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers

Wild Kitty
music traditional, words Marc Gunn

The first of my Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. This cat song is based on the Irish folk song "Wild Rover". This song tells of cat who is out searching for food, but instead just finds himself with drinking problem. The chorus is incredible fun!

Well I've been a wild kitty for many's the year,
And I found a nice pub that serves milk mixed with beer.
This makes me quite happy, so I'll purr with galore.
Cuz I never will be a wild kitty no more.

And it's no nay never, (meow, meow, meow, meow)
No nay never no more, (meow, meow)
Will I be a wild kitty. (meow)
No never no more.

Continued . . .

Art by any other name

I made the mistake of leaving my laptop on our living room table and my daughter decided that it would make a nice centerpiece to her toy installation. It took a lengthy negotiation and much pleading on my part to extract the computer.

House Afloat

A large three-story Victorian mansion made a voyage aboard a barge from Palmetto, up the Manatee River to Tampa Bay and across towards the Little Manatee River in Ruskin. More . . .

Coffee trail

Today, Britons will drink more than 70 million cups of coffee, but a remarkable story lies behind each one. To unravel it, Benjamin Joffe-Walt and Oliver Burkeman followed a bean from the Ethiopian village where caffeine's stimulant qualities were first discovered to a coffee shop in south London. More here.

Mimetic or Mimic architecture

Mimetic architecture is characterized by constructions in the forms of objects not normally associated with buildings, such as characters, animals, people or household objects. There may be an element of caricature or a cartoonish element associated with the architecture. Read on . . .

Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry

Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley

Red dress in landscape

When he said jump . . .

Philippe Halsman defied gravitas.

The freezing of motion has a long and fascinating history in photography, whether of sports, fashion or war. But rarely has stop-action been used in the unlikely, whimsical and often mischievous ways that Philippe Halsman employed it. Read on . . .

Wine Cellars for the rest of us

I love the idea of having a secret trap door in my floor. Forget the wine.

Early Daze

"Everywhere in this broad, flat valley are farms, orchards, gardens and typical California homes set amid gardens...or clinging to the hillsides or overlooking several golf courses. The air is deep with the aroma of growing things and of budding flowers, and in the early fall the scent of ripened fruits and grains permeates the valley."

The Romantic Southland of California, 1928 driving guide

'50s Tract Home Architect Recalls a Simpler Style

After World War II, the San Fernando Valley became a mecca for GIs and their families, looking for a place to settle and live the American dream.

For many in pursuit of affordable housing -- tract homes provided the answer.

During the 1950s, the architectural firm of Palmer and Krisel designed and built about 4,000 homes in the Valley. As purveyors of ``modernism for the masses,'' the duo was known for creating high-quality yet affordable work. Their homes, originally priced below $25,000, now command $600,000 and up.

``They brought the quality of good architecture to the mass housing industry,'' says Alan Hess, author of ``The Ranch House,'' and architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News.

``Developers would come to Southern California from other parts of the country and see what they were doing and take those ideas back with them.''

On Sunday, two Palmer and Krisel homes are featured on an L.A. Conservancy tour of modern homes in the Valley.

Bill Krisel, now 81 and living in Brentwood, will be at one of the residences to discuss his work.

Krisel was born in Shanghai, China, and says he was inspired to pursue architecture at age 12 when he read a piece about Frank Lloyd Wright in Life magazine. He received a degree in architecture from the University of Southern California in 1949, after serving in the U.S. Army as a Chinese interpreter during World War II.

In addition to designing tracts in the Valley, he and Dan Palmer worked in Palm Springs, San Diego and throughout the southern U.S. After their partnership dissolved in 1964, each went on to pursue successful independent careers.

Krisel sat down recently with the Daily News to reflect on his career.

Daily News: Who were the tract houses in the San Fernando Valley designed for?

Bill Krisel: It was for what you would call a ``hypothetical family.'' We created different families and that's why we had different size houses. You visualized a mother, father, two kids in the smaller houses, three kids in the medium house and four kids in the bigger house.

DN: You've done both custom design for individuals and tract work. Which did you like better?

BK: I much preferred doing tract work because we could create this hypothetical family as the client, whereas when you have a real client, they want you to measure how many pairs of shoes they have and how many neckties they have and how they fold their socks.

DN: But even though your homes weren't custom-built, they did come with a lot of special features.

BK: Because I did such a large volume of houses, manufacturers of lighting fixtures, kitchen appliances, windows, doors all came to me and said `What would you like to see?' So I would design light fixtures, appliances, carpets, doors, windows, everything. And they would use them in the houses.

DN: You lived in one of your own tract homes in the '50s right after you got married to your wife, Corinne. You had two kids there. How much did that house cost?

BK: We bought it for the regular price, we didn't get any special deal, and it was $14,500.

It was $500 down and the payments were $60 a month. It was a four-bedroom, three-bath house and it was very comfortable. We lived there for about three years.

DN: What set your work apart from others during the same time period?

BK: Our houses were unique in that we had a system. The materials that we used, we used efficiently. For example, if something came in a 4-foot size, we used it in a 4-foot size so there would be no waste.

Traditional, conventional houses paid no attention to those kinds of economies. There was total efficiency. The houses went up very quickly, they didn't get expensive to build, and they made the builders a lot of money.

DN: And the materials were durable.

BK: Well, they've lasted 50 years, so I can't argue with that.

As a matter of fact, at the time I made them I didn't believe they would still be around. I thought the world would change, people would tear them down or other things would be built there. And so I'm very pleased that so many of my houses are still being lived in 50 years later.

DN: Lately it seems like there's a renewal of enthusiasm for these homes.

BK: There's an appreciation of what was midcentury design. Because what tract builders went on to build after 10 years of modern houses are what we call Cinderella houses. These had cutesy little shutters and pot shelves and looked like Disneyland.

And the other sad thing is that houses got so big they had to go two stories and crowd the lots and so forth. I think there's going to be a resurgence to going back to the type of living we had in the '50s where you don't build monster houses.

DN: So midcentury modern was not a fad?

BK: No. It's still there. There are people still loving it. People still call me and say `I wish you would do some new ones.' So it's nice to have all that happiness going on.

Santa Ana winds a blowin'

What are they, anyway?

Unsure which color to choose?

Marcy Sings to $1.98 Children

Who is this doll and why is she singing to these children?

Paper art

The paper art of Peter Callesen. Amazing.

Tsunami

Yes, it costs as much as a car, but, oh, the whimsy . . .

Saturday morning dance class

One man's trash

Charles Adams

"I think I'll wait for the next elevator."


In 1988, when Charles Addams died of a heart attack inside his parked car, his wife made a remark that could have been a caption for one of his cartoons: "He's always been a car buff, so it was a nice way to go," she told The New York Times. More here.