Howl

This past weekend was, undeniably, the best July Fourth weekend I’ve ever had.

Thursday my sister, four friends of hers I’ve gotten to know here, and I went up into the San Jacinto wilderness to camp until Saturday. The campsite was 14 miles up a winding paved mountain road, and then another 6 miles up a one-lane dirt path; the site we reserved was the “group camp” site, which has enough room for a group of 100. For whatever reason, it was the only site available to rent so the six of us had the whole place to ourselves. More than a mile up in the air, pretty much right at the top of a mountain (close enough we climbed to the top in about an hour of pretty strenuous bouldering)… it was such a calming and spiritual place to be for a short while. We built fires and drank and talked and had a really spectacular two days.

Then, upon coming back Saturday afternoon, we went to a party at my sister’s boss’ house up in the hills near Pasadena. It was interesting coming down from a mountain wilderness camping experience and going right into a Hollywood party. Swimming, alcohol, food, hot tub, fireworks, even Nicolette Sheridan (I’m pretty sure we shared a moment when we locked eyes on the steps by the pool). Then crashing for a few hours of sleep before going to a farmers’ market and eating empanadas for lunch.

And then, to cap the whole weekend off, one of the most special experiences I’ve had on this trip. Death Cab for Cutie with the L.A. Philharmonic at the famous Hollywood Bowl. After finally getting into the venue just in time to catch the last couple songs from openers The New Pornographers, and seeing a good set from Tegan and Sara, Death Cab walked out on stage and played for about 45 minutes by themselves before taking a break and coming back out with the orchestra. By this time the sun had set and all 18,000 of us sitting in the cool Los Angeles air, in the middle of a valley with hills all around us, play another entire set with an orchestra backing.

My mom called me as I was walking into the Bowl to ask me about camping and if I got to see any fireworks. I can’t remember a July 4th without fireworks; going to a big fireworks show is one of the things I really enjoy. I was disappointed to tell her I hadn’t gotten to see any this year because we went to the party Saturday night, but I figured it was okay because my weekend had been good enough without the fireworks show. But I kind of wished I had seen some anyway.

The last song Death Cab played with the Philharmonic was “Transatlanticism” from the album of the same name. One of their best songs, by any measure, and probably their most epic. If you’re going to close out a show at the Hollywood Bowl with the L.A. Philharmonic on a summer night, this is the one to do it with. They’re playing, the orchestra musicians behind them on the riser are playing, the song starts to swell as it begins its second half, and suddenly, fireworks from the top of the amphitheater. The crowd gasps in surprise and then begins to cheer in awe and joy as each new round of light explodes in the sky with the timing of the song. The band extends the end of the song and the fireworks keep going off; finally the music fades to silence and the rockets stop shooting up into the Los Angeles night. The crowd explodes in cheers and applause.

And Oh My Holy God I Saw Heaven on Earth.

I was thinking today about the problems and weaknesses I have in my study of architecture; they basically all come down to the trouble I have getting my ideas out in a drawing. I can write about what I want to do with a building, and I go through versions in my head, but professors want to see stuff on paper. And I struggle with that quite a bit.  I realize I am only a fairly inexperienced student and my professors know so much more than I do, but at times I have this misplaced and unearned confidence that makes me tell myself, “Look, I know how I work best, just let me do it that way and things will turn out fine.” But then the end of the project comes and while I am usually fairly happy with the results, my professors are sometimes not.  So you would think I’d realize that maybe my way of working doesn’t…well, doesn’t work. But like I said, misplaced and unearned confidence.

But, at the same time, I don’t know if that’s all of it. There is a part of me, probably the largest part of me, that is not concerned so much with the aesthetics of a building or if I have everything detailed so that it’s obvious I know how a building works. I imagine I will learn that stuff in great detail as I go through my internship. What I am most concerned with while I am in school is getting the ideas right. Because I see myself as needing that base before I even begin to really make architecture. I feel like the larger idea behind a building is so much more important, and every building must have a larger idea. There must be a reason for every choice I make, whether it’s a large reason or a small one. But there must be a reason. Architects are one of the few people who can affect a person’s mood (this is why I’m always amused by the question, “Is architecture art?” Of course it is, just like painting, music, photography, etc! Although it’s inhabitableness makes it more than just art.), and I think we have a huge responsibility to be serious about that. So I feel like I must be able to understand how to do that before I can think about the technical and aesthetic aspects of architecture.

But that gets me into trouble, I think. Because professors want to see that I know the technical and aesthetic parts of it, and they want to see the versions I go through in my head. They want to see my concepts in a visual way when I don’t understand how to make an idea visible. And I’m learning those parts; I think I’m developing my own aesthetic sense, and I’ve learned what components have to go into a building to make it work. But that’s not really what comes out in my studio work, and I think that’s why I’m not getting the grades I want. I’m not saying this is my teachers’ fault at all, I know I need to “grow up” in my work enough to be able to deal with the technical and aesthetic aspects as well as the philosophical ones. But I can’t seem to shake the feeling that the technical and aesthetic aspects just don’t matter to me nearly as much. For me, right now, it’s all about the idea.

(I know a few architects read this blog. I’d desperately love some feedback.)

Two things. First: I went to see mewithoutYou in concert last night and they’re just as good as they always were. I’ve already written about how brilliant I think their new album is, and they played a good mix of songs from the new one and the two previous ones. They didn’t play anything off the first album, but I think the band was in a different mental place back then and they don’t like to play the really old stuff anymore. Which is fine. But man oh man are they still great in a live show. All the energy and passion is still there and added to it is a kind of immediacy and joy. Their music still makes me dance around as much as I can in the middle of a fairly packed-in group of people.

Second: as a bit of a weak segeue from partly Islamic music to a current Islamic political issue, yesterday I went to the protest here in Los Angeles for democracy in Iran. I’d guess there were a couple hundred people there, mostly young students around my age, and largely female. It was just as inspiring to see people who believe in an issue and come out in numbers to support their beliefs, and also to hear every car honking like crazy as it passed. Keep up on that stuff in the news, please. Don’t be ignorant to what’s being done to innocent people in that part of the world. This is turning into one of the most important times in recent history, on par with the fall of the USSR, because it’s turning into a protest not only against the election, but against Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of the country and possibly the top voice in the entire Muslim world. This calls into question the entire system of hardline conservative Muslim government, and does serious damage to the idea that Muslims do not want democracy and the idea that hardline Islamic law is the right kind of law. This oppressive and evil system of thought is being shouted down by hundreds of thousands of Iranians right this second, and if this system topples (and there are indications it really might because of the similarities of these protests to the ones that started the 1979 revolution in Iran) it will be a huge deal that will send shockwaves throughout the whole world. It will not destroy Islam or anything like that (and it shouldn’t, Islam is a valuable faith) but it will destroy the age of Ayatollah Khamenei and his oppressive practices.

(pictures of the rally are up on facebook)

First real Hollywood club experience last night. I kind of wonder if conversations are affected by having to talk loudly right into the person’s ear; I wonder if the closeness of lips and face births a feeling of heat and intimacy that would not be there if the conversants were only sitting in a quiet restaurant and trying to keep their voices down so the people at the other tables don’t get uncomfortable.

Maybe you catch eyes a few feet away and hold them for just a couple beats past the line of just a glance. Maybe your friends are literally pushing you to dance with a pretty girl wearing a hat and for a split-second you want to just punch them all in their faces and say, “Stop pushing me! Let me be the kind of person I want to be tonight!” And then you understand that you do, in fact, want to dance with this girl, and your friends are only concerned about your physical, mental, and sexual well-being, if such a thing exists and can be given concern.

So then you start talking into this girl’s ear, ducking your hatted head under the brim of her hat so your mouth is next to her cheek as you wonder if you’re saying the right things and asking the right questions. Because someone who is a little shy, who went to a religious school, and who spends all his waking moments these days sitting at a desk in school, hasn’t done this much. But you keep talking, and later you go to specifically find her later after getting a refilled Makers-on-the-rocks, and there’s more questions and answers spoken into ears from millimeters away, and then she takes your hand and you follow her past another rope to a seat right in front of the band, because she knows people.

And she’s a writer, which brings to your mind strange swirling feelings about your own writing and how you never know if it’s any good. And she loves things like the black under the fingernails of the architecture students she used to know. And she, and she, and she. And you, and you, and you. And then you decide to make the move and do something you’ve, honestly, never done before. Ask for the number. And she says, “You don’t live here, what are you gonna do?” And you scramble and say, “Well, I’ll call you.” And she repeats that you don’t live here, and then complies with your request for her name so you can look up her writing, and then you say goodbye and this time the lips close the distance to the cheek instead of the ear, and she leaves.

And it’s true. You don’t live here. But you feel like maybe one day you could, with whatever sort of person you meet and family you have when you’re older. You feel like even though you don’t live here, and in fact you live on almost the exact opposite end of the country, the night was worthwhile and vibrant and life-giving.

Sometimes when you’re the designated driver and you’re taking a car full of drunk people back to the house, the lights get in your eyes and blind you a little and you forget that you don’t live here. And in that little moment of forgetfulness, in that little moment of thinking that this is your town, everything seems right even though the girl in the hat walked out.

California is still amazing. A bunch of us went to the Dodgers game last Friday night and saw a ninth-inning, two-out comeback followed by post-game fireworks and then a cool bar afterwards that had the most incredible wallpaper I’ve ever seen. Then mom and dad got here Saturday, and they’re here for a week which has been really great so far. But I have two Hollywood stories:

Hollywood story one: The first night I was here, a couple weeks ago, one of my sister’s friends was shooting the pilot for a show he’s pitching to Comedy Central. We all went to be extras as a favor to the friend, and this scene was at night in the back garden of the main setting for the show, a tea shop. Without telling you too much of the story (mostly because I don’t know all the details), this scene involves the guy who played Rufio in Hook getting high and dressing up like Rufio and quoting lines from the movie from the roof of the shop. So I met the actual guy who played Rufio in Hook, and a few other actors who are all friends of the guy shooting the pilot.

Hollywood story two: Last night was the wrap party for the pilot, and my sister and her roommate and I were invited. The director who my sister and roommate know is dating Brooke Burns, actress and game show host. She’s one of the characters in the pilot too, and was at the party last night. She hadn’t met my sister or me yet, so the director is introducing us all. Hugs all around. Then as we were leaving, hugs all around again. So I hugged Brooke Burns twice. Two times. And she told me “sweet dreams” the second time because we had been joking about how I’m sleeping in my sister’s backyard shed.

Two times. And sweet dreams. I think Brooke Burns wants me.

Whoever said it’s always sunny and never rains in L.A. is a liar. This “June gloom” thing has got it overcast and cool in the mornings and sunny for only a few hours in the afternoon. But it’s kind of nice, actually, it’s still great weather, and it’s barely raining much, and there aren’t really any bugs so my sister can just leave all the windows open in her house all the time and never use the heat or air conditioning. If I had to pick somewhere in Los Angeles to live, it would definitely be near the water. It’s just nicer here than up in the hills.

I haven’t been able to go see a lot of architecture yet, but I have seen some. Sunday a couple cool homes up for sale near my sister were having open houses so we went and checked those out. Pretty nice modernist stuff, and I’m adjusting to the kind of housing found here. Setting aside the fact that there are is no modern home architecture in Charlotte thanks to the non-existent market for it, the style here wouldn’t work in Charlotte at all. It’s so unbelievably refreshing to not find brick Georgian houses everywhere, and to drive through actual neighborhoods rather than subdivisions. The home architecture here actually works, for the most part, and is so much more appropriate for the location than the homes I see in the suburban southeast. It’s a really nice change, and I think it contributes a lot to the overriding feeling of “comfortable” I’m getting here. This would really be a nice place to live.

I also went and saw Frank Gehry’s house today. Not the one he lives in now, I mean, but the one he did when he was first starting out. The one with all the chain-link fencing and exposed studs and angles stuck onto a residential Craftsman home. I’ve never been the hugest fan of Gehry, but I’m learning to appreciate certain things about certain works of his more and more, and I kind of loved the house a lot. It’s outlandish but in a way that’s so different from him Guggenheim or Disney Concert Hall. I don’t think the outlandishness of those buildings works very well, but for some reason I feel like this house does work. I still have trouble explaining how I feel about architecture I see, so please excuse my inability to say exactly how I feel about the house. But in spite of its craziness it really felt appropriate and like it belonged in that setting. It felt a lot more peaceful and right than his star-making work in the 90s does, I think. Looking at his house today, I didn’t feel the kind of discord I feel when looking at some of his stuff. I would have loved to have seen the inside of it too, because in my limited experience of his work the inside is pretty different from the outside, but someone lives there now, and the gate was closed, and I can’t just walk up and ask to take pictures of the inside of someone’s home, can I? Even in relaxed California that might be too presumptuous.

Sorry I haven’t been writing here much. I don’t have regular internet yet, so I’m having to make do at the Starbucks across the street. Actually, I’m having to make do with sitting in the Starbucks while stealing free internet from a tire shop across the street, because I don’t want to have to pay for coffee and internet both.

Yesterday I biked down to the beach from my sister’s house and lay there and read Alice Walker for a couple hours. Pretty great summer vacation so far.

I’m here in Los Angeles, and we went to the beach today. For Memorial Day they had a thing at the pier where Veterans for Peace had put together a miniature Arlington Cemetery where they had a field of crosses, each one representing an American death in Iraq. There were 4300 of them, including four flag-covered casket-size boxes for the four killed this week. It was incredibly hard for me to look at all of it, and I didn’t stay there for long. Reading the message book visitors had signed also hurt quite a bit.

Other than that, things are perfect here so far. Jennie has two Australian girls visiting her now, and I wonder why so many Americans just don’t travel like people from other countries do. Maybe it’s lack of money, maybe lack of time, or maybe it’s cheap American ego, but it seems like young people from other countries travel a lot more than we do; I don’t really understand that. I don’t get how people can just spend their whole lives without seeing the world. The cultures, practices, and ideas found outside of this country, outside of our little personal American boxes, make life so much richer.

Lastly, this blew my mind today. Lebron’s last-second game winner the other night also blew my mind. I think it was a major turning point not just for the series, but for his whole career.

If anyone has ever told you anything about Vegas, no matter how outrageous, it was probably true. So I don’t need to describe it anymore. Casinos, blah blah blah, neon lights, whatever.

I did win 75 bucks playing 5- and 10-dollar blackjack though. Won 60 the first night, then lost 80 really quickly the second night but made 95 at one table in another casino. So 75 total to the plus side. It was kind of cool leaving the blackjack table and walking over to the cashier with a 100-dollar chip. I also made a couple really small NBA playoff bets, because what sports fan goes to Las Vegas without going to the sport book in the casino?

Now I’m in Los Angeles and will be here for about a month before making the drive back across the country to home. On the way into the city today I saw a place having a big sidewalk sale of wholesale Ed Hardy stuff. The douchebag level of the people checking out the sale nearly blew my car off the road.

(I just checked and the spellcheck on this thing recognizes “douchebag” as a valid word.)

I drove from Flagstaff to Las Vegas yesterday; the drive, just like every other drive I’ve made on this trip, was stunningly beautiful. It’s interesting to me to see these places in person and realize how much I didn’t know about the scenery out here. One example: I didn’t realize there were so many mountains out here. I guess I thought Las Vegas and the surrounding area was just out in the desert. These mountains are so gorgeous, and I’m excited about seeing the Rockies on the way back home in a month. I also saw Hoover Dam; it might be the most impressive man-made object I’ve ever seen. It’s so large and impressive.

And now I’m in Vegas, and it’s just like everything you’ve ever heard about it. Everybody is spending all their money and pretending, at least a little bit, to be someone else. But that’s not so bad, is it? Sometimes pretending to be someone else can be a lot of fun, and Vegas is as good a place for that as anywhere else. One thing I learned quickly though: if you’re a pretty girl, or with a pretty girl, you can get into the clubs fast and without a cover. If you’re a guy by yourself, like me, you’re paying the cover and waiting in line.

I walked around the casinos last night till about 4 am and made 60 bucks playing 5-dollar blackjack and different casinos. I’m going to go out and win some more tonight. And who cares if I lose all my money anyway, it’s only my kids’ college fund, right?

The more I listen to this mewithYou cd, the more in total love with it I am. It’s really a special musical work.

I went and saw Sedona today and I liked it a lot better than the Grand Canyon. I think the Canyon is just too big to get any sense of, especially if you just stay on the rim, so it’s hard to really feel strongly about it. But Sedona, man, you’re right down among the huge rocks and the scale is easier to comprehend. The drive in and out of Sedona is strangely a lot like the North Carolina mountains– lots of winding roads and evergreeen trees– but there’s a sense of something different about it, and then all of a sudden you come around one of the bends in the road and there are all the Red Rocks just looming in front of you. It’s incredibly majestic and the views are so special. I decided to go up to Cathedral Rock, the most famous big rock around Sedona, and the lady at the visitor’s center told me “it’s pretty strenuous, it’s a climb rather than a hike.” Man, she wasn’t kidding. The first half was easy and then all of a sudden it’s actually climbing up steep bare rocks. I didn’t make it all the way up because I ran out of water, but I made it pretty close. The views from up there are the kind you really can’t get anywhere else. It’s like when I wrote about driving through New Mexico yesterday–it just takes your breath away and substitutes total wonder, silence, and stillness in its place. It’s impossible not to feel at one with the universe in a very real way from up there.

Today was also the day that the new mewithoutYou album came out. I can tend to facetiously exaggerate when describing something, but I’m not exaggerating this time when I say I think it’s the ultimate realization of what guys like Larry Norman were trying to do when they started Christian rock music, before money and greed got ahold of it. This album is a totally new thing in Christian music. For one thing, it’s thematically different than probably any music that’s ever been released on a Christian label. If you know mewithoutYou at all, you know they’ve always been sort of on the fringes of the Christian industry, writing honestly about doubt and God and love. But this cd expands on all those ideas and opens it to parables involving animals and food; in fact, anthropomorphised animals and food populate most of the album’s songs. For the past few years the band has been touring in a bus run on cooking oil and dumpster-diving for food or having potlucks at their shows, and it comes through on this album. There’s a real sense of how these guys feel about the natural world.

Another thing that makes it so different from other Christian music is that this is surely the first album released on a Christian label that’s largely a Muslim work. The liner notes talk about how many of the songs were inspired by Islamic teaching (and the songwriter and his brother were raised in a house that followed Sufism, a type of mystic Islamic faith), and one of the songs was inspired by the Tao Te Ching. There are also songs taken pretty much straight from the Bible, but this is a cd full of conversation about other religions. The last song on the album is titled “Allah, Allah, Allah” and is written in Arabic script on the liner notes; this song is about how God can be seen in everything, from every person to every blade of grass, and uses the title Allah for God. It inspires the listener, at least it did in me, to think about Christian/Jewish/Muslim history and how all three faiths are borne out of a belief in the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (and Ishmael).

This album speaks about food, animals, God, love, forgiveness, and faith in a way deeper than any other Christian album out there, and the music is as brilliant and beautiful as anything else out today. This shouldn’t surprise people who have liked mewithoutYou for years, but for this kind of thing, no doubt the first Islamic Christian album, to be released on a specifically Christian label and be carried in Christian bookstores…I am being honest when I say I think it’s the best Christian album ever.

(I should say, for clarity, that the album is not really a Christian-themed album. It’s a pluralism-themed album if anything. I just mean it’s the best album ever released on a Christian label. Strange that a not-specifically-Christian album is the best ever.)