I BET THAT IF TWO KIDS LIVED IN THOSE TWO HOUSES THAT THEY WOULD COME OUT ON THEIR ALMOST CONJOINING ROOFS OUTSIDE THEIR BEDROOM WINDOWS AND TALK AND BE BEST FRIENDS AND FALL IN LOVE.
I will not write fluff to that. I won’t. No.
LUCY I FOUND IT
But what if instead of two kids, it was, say, a kid and an old woman? And at first they just ignore each other and keep their blinds down and curtains shut, but then the kid climbs out onto the roof one spring morning to get a frisbee and she’s got the window open bc it’s so nice out and she tells him to cut that out, it’s not a jungle gym and maybe the kid shows off a bit and nearly falls, and the old woman catches his arm…. anyway, so sometimes they leave the windows open and the kid’ll show off his comic books or asks what rhymes with ‘beautiful’ (and it’s totally for homework shut up), and the old woman tells him about all the protests and marches she took part in, and asks him the name of that one cute pop star (it’s absolutely for her crossword now shush). And the old woman gives the kid relationship advice, and doesn’t tell when he tries a bit too much of his parents’ liquor cabinet one time, and the kid comes over and shows her how to use the smartphone her daughter bought for her, and doesn’t tell when she sneaks a cigarrette out of said daughter’s bag. And when the weather’s too bad to open the windows, they tape silly pictures or notes to the glass for the other to see (the kid makes sure to make his extra big so she doesn’t have to admit her eyeight isn’t what it used to be), and when it is nice the kid will sneak over and leave seashells on her windowsill, because the old woman said once she misses the sea, but she can’t travel like she used to. And one day he peeks in her window and sees her on the floor, and calls 911 and basically saves her life because she had a stroke and nobody would’ve known in time otherwise. And when she finally gets back from the hospital, just for a while because her daughter’s talking about a retirement home where she’ll have plenty of medical care and lots of friends her age, the kid comes through the window and then pulls another kid through the window who he introduces as his boyfriend, and says he wanted her to meet him. And she sniffs and interrogates the boyfriend in proper elderly relative fashion, and then declares him worthy of her boy– barely. And when she finally does have to go to that retirement home, the kid still comes to visit her, and always leaves seashells on the windowsill.
I haven’t seen this post in years…
I’m not crying you are
I GENUINELY NEVER THOUGHT I’D SEE THIS POST AGAIN I’M SO GLAD IT’S BACK
Elsa Bleda was born into movement, crossing continents in the turning tides of her mother, the artist. What does it mean to form connections through the heightened beauty of transience? To be half-way down the mercurial street before the light can gather to hold you? Some things may get left behind, remain as spectral after-effects of a vital acceleration into the world, but other things congregate and move with you at your pace; sights and sounds and textures, multiple influences to draw upon in self-definition.
Perhaps these rhythms are why she is so drawn to the spaces of Johannesburg’s night- the way they hold the traces of encounters in their quietening reverberations; speak to the tensions of leaving and arriving, and to all the different ways that a life can be lived.
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Amazing Cooling Towers Photographed by Reginald Van de Velde
Reginald Van de Velde (Belgium, 1975) scouts the unknown and the unseen. As a devoted traveller, he journeys into forsaken places all over the world, trying to capture the momentum of a fragile abandonment.
His photographs are a showcase of past splendour found in derelict hospitals, mothballed monasteries, defunct power stations, crumbling castles and many other dormant structures - the result of an intangible desire to explore what mankind has left behind. The reverb of time is Reginald’s vantage point.
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Although a scatterbrain as a child, Tom Kidd was a magic copying machine. Once he looked at something he could draw it accurately, but he was quick to notice that machines could do just as good a job as he could. Even though he had offers to do portraits, he set about making things up to draw instead - no camera could do that, and making things up was more fun anyway. Later with role models like Chesley Bonestell and Norman Rockwell to guide him he worked towards his goal of being a fantasy illustrator. This led to a scholarship to Syracuse University, but he dropped out after two years, and eventually moved to New York City. His simple plan: sink or swim. After some gasping and flailing in the muck of the big city he got the hang of it and begin treading water.
Tom Kidd has worked for a number of publishers: Baen Books, Random House, DAW Books, Warner Books, Doubleday, Ballantine Books, Marvel Comics and Tor Books. He has illustrated two books: “The Three Musketeers” (1998 - William Morrow) and “The War of the Worlds” (2001 - Harper Collins), and there are two books of his art: “The Tom Kidd Sketchbook” (1990 - Tundra) and “Kiddography: The Art & Life of Tom Kidd” (2006 – Paper Tiger). A gallery featuring this book just appeared in the April ’06 issue of Realms of Fantasy.
His art has won him a World Fantasy Award (Best Artist 2004) and seven Chesley Awards. Kidd has also done design work for film, theme parks, entertainment products, and all types of conceptual design work for such clients as Walt Disney, Rhythm & Hues and Universal Studios. His work has been displayed in a wide array of venues, including The Delaware Art Museum, The Society of Illustrators and the Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame. His favorite and most time-consuming obsession is a unpublished book called “Gnemo: Airships, Adventure, Exploration.” This is the sort of stuff that makes him happy.
New York City as it might have been: 200 years of visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and, of course, skyscrapers
Never Built New York shows us the visionary architectural ideas of the city’s greatest dreamers across two centuries of New York City history. Nearly 200 proposals spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, master plans, parks, transit schemes, amusements, airports, plans to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are alternate visions for Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, MoMA, the UN, Grand Central Terminal, the World Trade Center site and other highlights such as: Alfred Ely Beach’s system of airtight subway cars propelled via atmospheric pressure; Frank Lloyd Wright’s last project, his Key Plan for Ellis Island, on which he would have developed his dream city; Buckminster Fuller’s design for Brooklyn’s Dodger Stadium, complete with giant geodesic dome to shield players and fans from the rain; developer William Zeckendorf’s Rooftop Airport, perched on steel columns 200 feet above street level, spanning from 24th to 71st Street, Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River; John Johansen’s Leapfrog City proposal to create an entirely new neighborhood atop the tenements of East Harlem; and Stephen Holl’s Bridge of Houses, offering options from SROs to modest studios to luxury apartments on a segment of what is now the High Line.
