Dystopia Report: The I-710 Corridor Aesthetic Master Plan

...reeway builder’s utopian promise of speed and liberty delivers, instead, exurban sprawl, congestion and waves of urban decay and gentrification. That utopian vision of Freeway building is personified in mid-century figures like Robert Moses and the city fathers of early 20th century Los Angeles. But Jameson goes on to question, “does anyone believe in progress any longer? . . . are the architects and urbanists still passionately at work on Utopian...

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Saturday Linkages: Grains, Collapse and Mangoes

...la.com/2014/03/bulletin-board-new-little-free-library-in-silver-lake-seeks-book-donations/ … What if Everything You Knew About Grains Was Wrong? http://shar.es/B37xj Pot grow light interferes with HAM radio bands: http://www.arrl.org/news/view/arrl-to-fcc-grow-light-ballast-causes-hf-interference-violates-rules … Granjas urbanas ganan terreno en Los Ángeles http://tinyurl.com/ozxeley How sustainable is digital fabrication? http://www.lowtechmagazi...

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We Went to Japan

...n’s book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. In that book Jameson links the particular stage of global capitalism we live in with the confusing “hyperspacial” non-hierarchical architectural spaces we navigate. Tokyo’s huge, meandering shopping malls, train stations and packed boulevards overwhelm, disorient and perfectly exemplify what Jameson describes in that book. We took a day trip to Kamakura to see the many Shinto shrin...

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Plum Lemon Tomato Power’s Heirloom Tomato

...1,840 confirmed cases of food-borne illnesses in domestic tomatoes. Again, urban homesteading revolutionaries, GROW YOUR OWN! We found that label and it’s a tomato called “Power’s Heirloom”. Here’s how the Seed Saver’s exchange catalog copy describes it, “First offered in the 1990 SSE Yearbook by Bruce McAllister from Freedom, Indiana. His seed originated in Scott County in southwest Virginia over 100 years ago. Heavy yields of 3-5 oz. yellow past...

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