I first read about containers being used as buildings in How Buildings Learn, one of my favorite books. In my Vassar alumni monthly this month was an article about Adam Kalkin, who makes houses out of shipping containers, which brought me also to Lot-ek and then I found this great resource on Shipping Container Architecture. where I found the picture above of a shipping container classrooms installed in 8 hours in Container City. I like the circular window designs, which offset the rectilinearity of the containers.

and

There is a quote by Adam Smith that I have been unable to find, which is a bit like the first paragraph quoted up above. He says that the worst fate that can befall a man is that no one look up when he enters a room, that he is not noticed, that no one cares for him...I can't find it. Anyone?

From the preface to The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.

I was away for my birthday, we went to Banff. Awesome.

And while you're loitering here, from artlung, a whole photoset of art created on an Amiga with humble tools and a 256 color palette.

I am reading, slowly, but with great relish, Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. It is superb. If you are also reading or have read it, these annotations may interest you.

Some things bandied about at last night's dinner party at Jerry's house:

• Stewart explained to us the basic problems worrying persons who study the Philosophy of Biology
• Emergence is an attempt to explain the large actions and events through rules-based behavior, the small writ large
• T-shirt sniffing. I offered up the story of a study in which women sniffed the tshirts of various men and described who they were most attracted to, by smell. Turned out they were most attracted to men who were the most genetically dissimlar to them. Except when they were pregnant or on the pill. In which case they were most attracted to men who were most genetically similar to them.
• There was a piece in the Harper's Index about how gay men are attracted to the same pheronomes that women are.
• Tom Cruise totally failed the "half your age + 7" thing with Katie Holmes. i.e. it's OK to date someone half your age + 7 years. We all voiced concerns that Greater America was incapable of seeing that Tom Cruise was gay.
• One party guest related the story of going to a party in New York and seeing Tom Cruise and Cher groping each other in the corner underneath a piano. Which confirmed for the dinner party once and for all that Tom Cruise was gay.
• Cher?! also:
• "Cruise"?
• Who had any idea that John Travolta was also gay?
• We talked about cults and then I related the story of how the Moonies have tried to pick me up on 5 separate occasions. Someone grew up with the two sisters who administered the Kool-Aid in Jonestown, and another person had a friend whose brother was rejected by the Moonies because he had OCD.
• We talked about whether Nibby bars or Charles Chocolate rice krispie bars were better. I come down firmly on the side of Charles Chcolate rice krispie bars.
• We did talk about other topics. I related the story of how I met a serial killer once, before he'd killed anyone. They corrected me and told me he was a spree killer and not a serial killer. Indeed.
• We ate a delicious dinner.
• We drank red wine.
• We played Werewolf, at which the peasants won every time. Go peasants!

We were put up for the past month in a corporate apartment, that was completely beige. Even the art was beige. It was a stack o' yuppies too, mostly commuters who worked in the Valley. And the concierge hugged us as we were leaving and said she was going to miss us, which took me by surprise. Bye bye corporate apartment! I loved the dry cleaning service.