The rebirth is double-plus officially underway! You know the world is safe for capitalism when long in the tooth ‘avant garde’ artists, in case, Jeff Koons and Jenny Holzer (though it turns out she wasn’t long in the tooth enough, and surrendered veto power to some Silverman lackey), have been asked to gild the tomb that is 7WTC. The whole shebang was dedicated with a klezmer band a couple days ago with Fitterman Hall staring barefully down.
The building itself actually isn’t that bad, even with its stainless prophylactic base. That is mostly because the Bank of NY trust facility and RR Donnelly, two of the best examples of Tysons Corner-quality architecture in the city, are the immediate context. Every once in a while I want to feel the strange mixture of dystopian social evolution and sexual awakening that was Logan’s Run, and now I have a place to go (though, unfortunately, Jenny Argutter won’t turn up in a pelt).
So how about that thingamabob from Koons! It’s no big puppy, that’s for sure. The word (in my head) that there was a discussion of having Barney slather the security sheathing in petroleum jelly (well, actually K-Y, for maintenance reasons) while Bjork stood in the parklet and yelped turned out only be to an outtake from Cremaster 9.
Early reports indicate 25% occupancy, an impressive number, even if you net out the space that the guys just hired by Silverstein to build the next towers agreed to rent. Oh, and the chunk that the city and state bent over backwards to get the Commies to rent (didn’t they get the top 5? Wasn’t that where Giuliani’s bunker was? Is that some kind of irony? Little Red Bunker, maybe?). And Silverstein’s office (the must need a lot of space to fit those big development fee checks). That leaves, um, the science guys, right? Anyway, onwards and upwards. Or overwords, or something.
Overwords at the sacredness proper, it’s a total clusterfuck. Not a total clusterfuck like last year, when no one knew what the Memorial would look like, or even what the final program was; when the deconstruction of 130 Liberty was marred by poor oversight and flawed planning; when no one could shoot straight at the LMDC; when no progress was being made on the Freedom Tower; when Pataki was a bumbling idiot who couldn’t marshal the forces of the PANYNJ to finalize any site planning; when no one knew how anything was being paid for, but that all the money was definitely running out.
No, now it’s a new kind of clusterfuck, one that — I was going to cut and paste the above paragraph, for dramatic effect, but even that isn’t worth it. Can we agree once again how unfathomable it is that these people can speak without shame in public? If this were medival Japan (or at least my James Clavell induced version of it), wouldn’t they all have committed ritual suicide by now for their failings?
It’s cheap to say that I’ve been so aghast at recent developments that I’ve been reduced to silence, instead of laziness. I did think about bothering, but how many ways can I say it? And I’m the kind of person who repeats the same stories and complaints again and again for years. When someone as unoriginal as I get tired at repetition, it is a sad state indeed.
The last couple weeks have been, I dunno, comically horrific, horrifically comic, new levels of abasement, pick one:
Michael Arad decided pouting in private was useless in the face of a faceless bureaucracy, and hung it out for all to see (the choice pull quote? it’s all about the stupid), inducing in many of us an embarrassing flashback to what we were like as first year studio scrubs. And he manages to look like the good guy. Ugh.
Pataki has descended to such a level of self parody that I imagine he’s taken to baroque Catch-22-esque behaviors, like demanding his wife call him Mr. President around the house. But he can’t even delude a constituency of one; the real story is probably that he has the presidential seal embroidered on his underwear, and she laughs at his executive manhood ambitions when he crawls into bed each night.
In response to the complete stasis found far and wide, the imbecile committee running the show took everyone’s name and put them in a hat, instead of the trash, and picked. So Kevin Rampe, who couldn’t run the LMDC the first time, nor raise any money for the memorial, gets another shot. Frank Sciame, who has managed to build like, three row houses in the South Street Seaport, is going to get the budget under control. And Silverstein is now saying his agreement to cede control was only an agreement to agree (oh, and the insurance company is going to welsh on the payments if he does agree to the agreement).
And then there are the little things, like the transit authority saying their glass hat over at Fulton Street was never that important (after a slew of businesses, some of which were there for decades, and stuck it out after the attacks, were evicted). Now we get the news that there is yet another committee being formed to come up with alternates to the design. And after all this, so little of the information is available in an easily of comestible way. We’re talking billions of dollars here, piles of which will come from tax receipts or private donations. After watching these people twist for five years now, arguing that the more public involvement would slow down the process rings a little hollow. Hell, picking five names at random in the phone book would probably produce more results. What is certainly clear is that relying on long time fixers from downtown (Wiesbrod, Whitehead, Sciame, et al), justified initially because of their commitment and expertise, has resulted in an empty hole that isn’t even filled with all the money they’ve squandered to date.
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Too bad it wasn’t one of the “fucking the wife” sculptures.
The rebirth is double-plus officially underway! You know the world is safe for capitalism when long in the tooth ‘avant garde’ artists, in case, Jeff Koons and Jenny Holzer (though it turns out she wasn’t long in the tooth enough, and surrendered veto power to some Silverman lackey), have been asked to gild the tomb that is 7WTC. The whole shebang was dedicated with a klezmer band a couple days ago with Fitterman Hall staring barefully down.
The building itself actually isn’t that bad, even with its stainless prophylactic base. That is mostly because the Bank of NY trust facility and RR Donnelly, two of the best examples of Tysons Corner-quality architecture in the city, are the immediate context. Every once in a while I want to feel the strange mixture of dystopian social evolution and sexual awakening that was Logan’s Run, and now I have a place to go (though, unfortunately, Jenny Argutter won’t turn up in a pelt). So how about that thingamabob from Koons! It’s no big puppy, that’s for sure. The word (in my head) that there was a discussion of having Barney slather the security sheathing in petroleum jelly (well, actually K-Y, for maintenance reasons) while Bjork stood in the parklet and yelped turned out only be to an outtake from Cremaster 9. Early reports indicate 25% occupancy, an impressive number, even if you net out the space that the guys just hired by Silverstein to build the next towers agreed to rent. Oh, and the chunk that the city and state bent over backwards to get the Commies to rent (didn’t they get the top 5? Wasn’t that where Giuliani’s bunker was? Is that some kind of irony? Little Red Bunker, maybe?). And Silverstein’s office (the must need a lot of space to fit those big development fee checks). That leaves, um, the science guys, right? Anyway, onwards and upwards. Or overwords, or something. Overwords at the sacredness proper, it’s a total clusterfuck. Not a total clusterfuck like last year, when no one knew what the Memorial would look like, or even what the final program was; when the deconstruction of 130 Liberty was marred by poor oversight and flawed planning; when no one could shoot straight at the LMDC; when no progress was being made on the Freedom Tower; when Pataki was a bumbling idiot who couldn’t marshal the forces of the PANYNJ to finalize any site planning; when no one knew how anything was being paid for, but that all the money was definitely running out. No, now it’s a new kind of clusterfuck, one that — I was going to cut and paste the above paragraph, for dramatic effect, but even that isn’t worth it. Can we agree once again how unfathomable it is that these people can speak without shame in public? If this were medival Japan (or at least my James Clavell induced version of it), wouldn’t they all have committed ritual suicide by now for their failings? It’s cheap to say that I’ve been so aghast at recent developments that I’ve been reduced to silence, instead of laziness. I did think about bothering, but how many ways can I say it? And I’m the kind of person who repeats the same stories and complaints again and again for years. When someone as unoriginal as I get tired at repetition, it is a sad state indeed. The last couple weeks have been, I dunno, comically horrific, horrifically comic, new levels of abasement, pick one: Michael Arad decided pouting in private was useless in the face of a faceless bureaucracy, and hung it out for all to see (the choice pull quote? it’s all about the stupid), inducing in many of us an embarrassing flashback to what we were like as first year studio scrubs. And he manages to look like the good guy. Ugh. Pataki has descended to such a level of self parody that I imagine he’s taken to baroque Catch-22-esque behaviors, like demanding his wife call him Mr. President around the house. But he can’t even delude a constituency of one; the real story is probably that he has the presidential seal embroidered on his underwear, and she laughs at his executive manhood ambitions when he crawls into bed each night. In response to the complete stasis found far and wide, the imbecile committee running the show took everyone’s name and put them in a hat, instead of the trash, and picked. So Kevin Rampe, who couldn’t run the LMDC the first time, nor raise any money for the memorial, gets another shot. Frank Sciame, who has managed to build like, three row houses in the South Street Seaport, is going to get the budget under control. And Silverstein is now saying his agreement to cede control was only an agreement to agree (oh, and the insurance company is going to welsh on the payments if he does agree to the agreement). And then there are the little things, like the transit authority saying their glass hat over at Fulton Street was never that important (after a slew of businesses, some of which were there for decades, and stuck it out after the attacks, were evicted). Now we get the news that there is yet another committee being formed to come up with alternates to the design. And after all this, so little of the information is available in an easily of comestible way. We’re talking billions of dollars here, piles of which will come from tax receipts or private donations. After watching these people twist for five years now, arguing that the more public involvement would slow down the process rings a little hollow. Hell, picking five names at random in the phone book would probably produce more results. What is certainly clear is that relying on long time fixers from downtown (Wiesbrod, Whitehead, Sciame, et al), justified initially because of their commitment and expertise, has resulted in an empty hole that isn’t even filled with all the money they’ve squandered to date.