Pumpkin Pie At Last!

A mere 4 months after the pumpkin roasting/pureeing/freezing of the previous post, I present to you, (only slightly burnt and disfigured) pumpkin pie! The burning and disfiguring is entirely my own fault - I stupidly placed the pie on a cookie sheet before putting it in the oven, instead of putting the cookie sheet on the rack below, which caused the cookie sheet to warp as it heated, which twisted the pie, causing it to spill... etc. Duly noted not to do that again.

My pureeing could also use some work, it turns out. The pie turned out very pumpkin-y, as expected from using fresh/frozen pumpkin, but slightly chewy because of the pumpkin pieces still in it. Oh well - a real blender is on its way to help with this problem! Special thanks to Dad for his modified recipe.

Meanwhile, it's spring break, hence the flurry of posts. And it's actually starting to feel like spring around here; the high today was 68, and my tree is in bloom! Let's hope it keeps it up! Last week Mom was visiting, so we went to see "The King's Speech" - very good - and "Billy Elliott," the musical. I can't say as much for the musical, unfortunately; I thought the plot was bizarre, the songs not very memorable. But it had some funny moments and was interesting. We also went to see the premiere performance of Roger Zare's piece in the Impressionist Suite. See: Roger's website. We loved hearing the work of my famous friend!

Also meanwhile, my to-do list looks like this: 1. Finish portfolio. 2. Get a job using said portfolio. 3. Make approximately one thousand decisions related to the wedding. Should be easy, right? Let's hope so! But seriously, the job hunt begins ASAP, and classes start back on Monday, so once again I will be extremely busy. But that's generally the way I like it! I'll try to get pictures up on Picasa soon with some of my work from this semester.

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Book Review: "Theory and Design in the First Machine Age"

Reyner Banham 's Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960) is an engaging overview of the important theoretical developments of the early 20th century leading up to the "International Style" of the 1930s-40s. Banham does a fairly good job, in my opinion, of avoiding excessive editorializing, although he has a clear viewpoint on the Modern Movement and finishes with a strong conclusion. In opposition to his teacher, Nikolaus Pevsner , whose own history of modernism came out in 1936, Banham dismantled the " form follows function " credo that became the stereotype of modernism, arguing instead that formalism (a preoccupation with style and aesthetics) was an important, if not overriding, concern of Modern architects. Two sections of the book struck me in particular: his analysis of Le Corbusier's famous book Vers une architecture (Toward a [new] architecture) from 1923, and his Conclusion (chapter 22), where he breaks the link between functionali...

Vertical Bike Rack

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From the Architectural Archives: Decoy Houses

Did you grow up with a "haunted house" in your neighborhood? It turns out that some buildings that look like houses aren't really houses at all, but are instead the haunts of infrastructure. I first learned about these decoy houses from BLDGBLOG (Geoff Manaugh's excellent and thought-provoking blog) and found the idea too fascinating to pass over. Hidden among the ordinary houses in ordinary neighborhoods, buildings that look like houses to the casual observer are actually power substations, water pump stations, subway vents or exits, and more. Some have been built this way from scratch in order to appease neighbors. Others are ex-houses, converted from real houses into shells in order to conceal infrastructure or preserve the historic character of a neighborhood. All of them are a bit spooky. Here are few for your consideration. Image courtesy of Autopilot via Wikipedia 58 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY This is an ex-townhouse , built ...

Not Built in a Day

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