The Passage of Dark Recesses
Ah, ruins, ruins. Gilding is aparently in a ruinous form tonight. So yadda-yadda, here’s some more ruination…yeah, Gilding was going to right some gilded banter about the blog but, meh, she’s going to leave you with its name and a link — Dark Passage Travelogue — and go get some Kevin Smith action on — an Evening With…Part Deux.
Oh, OK. She’ll leave you with this, Dark Passage is a New York based organization with an eye towards are and play in ruins. While Dark Passage is dedicated to the exploration of ruins all around, be sure to check out their interesting take on their website in regards to hospitals. Cleverly named Hospital Hopscotch, these ruins are focused on that of hospitals left free to succumb to its own mortality. Its deeper exploration is into the irony of the disintegration of these buildings and the mockery with which it makes of the order and hygiene formerly attempted with them. The hospitals have become their own funeral parlors. Hospital Hopscotch essentially performs a hospital autopsy: “As it was forbidden centuries ago to peek inside a dead body, we are likewise now told that the innards of these institutions are things we are not meant to see.”
Link: Dark Passage | Dark Passage Travelogue
An Acre of Seats in a Magic City
Balaban and Katz, architects who were largely responsible for popularizing the motion picture palace, and owned and operated dozens from the 1920′s to the 1970′s, found their crown jewel to their theater chain in Chicago’s own Uptown Theatre. The Spanish Revival style design was loosely derived from Spanish Baroque architecture and included nearly 4,500 seats, making it the second largest movie palace in the United Stated — after New York’s own Radio City Music Hall. Consisting of a five story main lobby and two other side lobbies, an eight story facade, a large Wulitzer organ, marble statuary and oil paintings, much of its inner glories were sold off to pay for the care of place as the reputation of the area slowly declined and the cost of upkeep, its size, and competition with the Riviera and Aragon became financial hardships.
Its original venue being silent films complete with full orchestra , the stage has also seen musicals, concerts, television shows, company meetings…
In the 1970′s, the Uptown was used, in large, as a concert venue, having such memorable concerts as: Bruce Springstein in 1980, Frank Zappa, Bob Marley, carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello, Prince, Dire Straits, Peter Gabriel, Charlie Daniels’ Band, The Kinks, and Foreigner. It was, however, about this time that the theater was sold, boarded up, and plans as to what to do with the massive, archaic behemouth were being formed. Frozen water pipes, however, put a halt to that when they burst inside the theater causing severe damage.
Though the Uptown currently stands protected as one of Chicago’s landmarks, its future still remains uncertain as efforts are underway to raising money (some have speculated nearly 4 million) needed for the restoration.
Some really fantastic images of the interior of the Uptown can be found on Undercity.org, a website dedictated to exploration of abandoned and hidden urban sites by a “guerilla historian in Gotham”. Second City Warehouse on flickr also has some images, and were actually the first ones Gilding found which sent her on this web-historic search on the Uptown.
Link: Chicago Landmarks | neatorama | Uptown Theatre
Spirits, Goblins, and Gun Powder, Oh My!
Gilding could have sworn she wrote on this, like months ago — months — but damned if she can find it. So this may be a reapeat but, meh, its a repeat with new pictures…she thinks.
Neslted on an island in the Hudson stands the remnants of a Scotsman’s fortress, Bannerman Castle. Beneath the brittle body of the century old castle walls and hidden over by tangled vines lie Civil War bayonet scabbards and the ashes of Irish linen bed sheets.
Part of the New York Parks Department and on the historic register, Bannerman castle was built 70 years ago, not as a home, but as an arsenal for the castle’s builder, Frank Bannerman VI’s, immense collection of weapons. Bannerman was a Scottish patriot, proud of his descent from one the few Macdonald’s to survive the massacre at Glencoe in 1692. Legend has it that the Macdonald clan, upon the King of England’s demanded allegiance and their subsequent slow ness to answer, were slaughtered by a rival family, the Campbells, acting on the behalf of the king. Macdonald males ages 12-70 were killed, save one, who escaped to the hills with the clan banner — from that day forward the family name becoming Bannerman.
The Bannerman family immigrated to the United States in the mid 1800′s to settle in Brooklyn. Establishing a family business of selling flags, ropes, and other acquired articles at Navy auctions, Frank Bannerman VI’s father joined the union during the Civil War, leaving 13 year-old Frank to run the business. At the close of the Civil War, the U.S. government auctioned off military goods by the ton, young Frank capitalizing on what the army was mostly scrapping for their metal as something that could be sold on the market for higher value. Bannerman’s, opening a storefront that took up a full city block on Broadway, became the world’s largest buyer of surplus military equipment.
But it wasn’t until the close of the Spanish American War, when Bannerman purchased 90 percent of all captured goods in a sealed bid, that it became necessary to find a secure place to store their large quantity of volatile black powder. Scouted by his son, David, Pollopel Island, in the Hudson, was purchased in 1900, and became the future home of Bannerman Castle.
During the next 17 years, Frank Bannerman personally designed the island’s buildings, docks, turrets, garden walls, and moat in the style of old Scottish castles. Elaborately decorated, the castle featured biblical quotations cast into all the fireplace mantles, a shield between the towers with a coat of arms, and a wreath of thistle leaves and flowers.
Frank Bannerman’s grandson, Charles, married Jane Campbell, bringing a happy union on American soil to an ancient Scottish rivalry. Now an active widoe in her 80s, Jane is involved in the Bannerman Castle Trust. an organization dedicated to stabilizing the ruins of Bannerman Castle and opening the island to the public.
Also scattered about the castle during its heyday were invaluable relics such as a table owned by General Washington and arctic equipment once used by Admiral Perry on his trip to the North Pole. Fascinated travelers once passed by on railroad and the Dayline steamer; their access barred by armed guards, watch dogs, warning signs and red flags.
In 1967, the Bannerman family sold Bannerman Castle to New York State, which took possession after all the old military merchandise was removed and the relics given to the Smithsonian. NY State had plans to open Bannerman Island as a park, and for a short time in 1968 ran tours of the island. But a raging fire of unknown origin destroyed all of the buildings in August of 1969. The island has since then been declared off limits; sort of an island legacy since its first neighboring inhabitants, Native Americans and Dutch settlers, avoided the island fearing it was inhabited by spirits and goblins.
And while the island has been barred to public access by the Taconic Park Commission, God love people who break the rules so we don’t have too. Images taken of Bannerman Island can be found all over the internet by these law breaking adventurers .^_~.; the ones featured here are by Shaun O’Boyle
Link: Hudson River: Bannerman Island | Bannerman’s Island — photos by Shaun O’Boyle
Related Link: BLDGBLOG | lostinjersey on flickr
The Door to Hell
Always new the door to Hell would be created by man. Some 35 years ago in the small town of Darvaz geologists, while drilling for natural gas, opened up an underground cavern that covered the expanse of their entire drilling site. Unwilling to enter the cavern while poisonous gasses were still detectable, the geologists set fire to the cavern hoping that it would “burn off” the gasses and clear the air for further exploration. What they got instead is a continuous 35 years of burning inferno. Ceasing to stop burning, the site has become known by locals as “The Door to Hell”.
Link: English Russia
The Other Side of Vintage
Oh, happy day! Not so very long ago, Gilding was ever so depressed at the lack of cultural?…era?…furniture design in her hometown of Redneck Riviera fashioned of beach kitsch of the worst palm tree, pastel ladden kind, and camoflage. Gilding is ever the lover of Dutch design and French Provincial. The clean colors, curvy lines, and Euro-charming design of Lust Fyllt’s home suits Gilding just fine. But none of this vintage furniture, so full of age and time and history, could be found in this coastal hometown.
But then Gilding came upon this gem in the rough. Rough and restored that is. Located in Railroad Sqaure, an abandoned industrial parkway of Tallahassee’s old railroad system some years ago turned into an eclectic and eccentric gathering of artists and stores, can be found The Other Side Vintage. Tucked away within its treasure trove of vintage clothing and costume jewelry housed inside a large multicolored garage is located so many pieces of unique and vintage furniture to make Gilding’s heart go flutter. Gilding has already scoped out quite a few in fact; a day trip to visit this treasure trove very soon is already in the works. Soon my pretty’s, you will be mine!
Link: The Other Side Vintage | The Other Side Vintage Myspace
Catching the Common Fat Ass
Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, LA., have linked obesity to a highly infectious virus which also causes sniffles and sore throats. The sneaker little bugger, known as AD-36 infects the lungs then makes it way around the body, forcing fat cells to multiply while hiding behind the common sore throat. So essentially, obesity can be “caught” as easily as the common cold from the nasty, germ-spreading people around you.
According to associate professor Nikhil Dhurandhar at Pennington, the virus insinuates itself into the fat cells, replicating itself and in the process increases the number of new fat cells, which may explain why the fat tissue expands, along with our asses.
A third of people tested had the rare and highly contagious virus compared to just 11% of thinner people. And like any virus, until resistance to the bug has been built up within the immune system weight gain can last three months. Evidence in tests on mice and chickens shows the bug could cause already overweight people to gain weight.
Unfortunately though, Dhurandhar makes note that there are other pesky reasons other than viral infections for obesity so its pointless for fat people to try to avoid infection. So while you’re shoving that umpteenth ladel size spoonful of ice cream in your mouth you can’t blame it all on AD-36. Damnit!
Link:
The Gift Store of Good Givings
Have you ever wanted to go to some small tucked away shop with all the charm in the world and where you can buy all the happiness, warm feelings, laughs and smiles, and hugs when no where else in the world seems to be offering them. Its a whimsical, magical shop where buying the intangible in metaphors makes you happy and comforted simply by a notion. Or maybe its not you that needs the comfort but a loved one. A loved one who needs all those intangible things to be tangible. Its one of the reasons I love this Mastercard commercial so much.
In fact, Gilding wants to own a store just like it. What fun would that be! So many novelty stores that sell everything from the innane to the evil, but, Oh, to have a novelty store where the chachkis are about good feelings and love — send hugs to a loved one far away, or send smiles to someone having a bad day, give contentment in a bag, and a million laughs at the palm of your hand.
But until Gilding can have her store of good feelings, perhaps she will fashion some gift baskets of her own with all the intangibles-made-tangibles she can think of. We shall see…see how long this mood of good givings lasts that is. We all know Bitchy Gilding reigns supreme in this land.
Sissy Kissed and Babyart
This is so dirty. Gilding is definitely going to hell for this one. No tangible information has been found on this naughty creation, sooo…nothing to tell you there. She did get a kick out of this site — mildly disgusted, a little tingly, and wholly amused, to be exact.
Blind and Seeing
After two consecutive strokes left patient TN, in his 50′s, clinically blind from injury to each hemisphere of his visual cortex, researches became intrigued with him when they discovered during TN’s recovery that despite his blindness, he had maintained the ability to detect emotion on a person’s face. TN responded appropriately to a variety of facial expressions of fear, joy, anger; activity in his amygdala — the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions — confirmed the curious results.
Researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands took their experiments one step further, placing TN in an obstacle course: chairs, boxes, and other various objects were placed down a long hallway and TN was set loose to walk the deathtrap of a corridor unassisted. Astonishingly, TN negotiated the “course” perfectly, never once colliding into any of the possible obstacles.
TN’s rare condition is known as blindsight. Because the strokes damaged only the visual cortex, his eyes remain functional, still registering information it gathers from his environment. He simply lacks the visual cortex to process and interpret it, making TN’s brain register sight not as a conscious but subconscious experience. Though he no longer has a definitive picture of his surroundings, TN retains an innate awareness of his position in the world; seeing without being aware that he is seeing.
Link: SEED– Seeing in the Dark
Above photo from the play “thirty seven isolated events” by paige starling sorvillo at the CounterPULSE Theater. Photo by Ian Winters.
Children, the New Allergy
Germany’s fertility rate has long been below the rate needed to keep the population stable. While many causes have been to blame, experts have single out a decline in adequate child care, which forces women to choose between career and motherhood. Toppled with the unification of Germany when the wall came down leaving the economy of the East in tatters, furthered the problem of children being a financial hardship.
Under the leadership of Germany’s fmaily minister, the government sought to reverse the trend by financing day cares that covered infants and toddlers, allowing mothers to both the mothers and career women. The aim is to triple the number of spots at day care centers by 2013 to 750,000.
Commendable as that is, not all Germans are on board with saving their population as children have become the new allergy. Also a growing trend are lawsuits against these new day cares, which oftentimes open in residential neighborhoods for easy access, for noise pollution. While many of the disputes are easily settled by mediation and tweaking of play-time schedules and moving playrooms away from adjoining apartment walls, officials still admit “The majority have been ‘weaned off’ children…It’s not rejection or embrace, but they simply have no feel for what it is like for children to grow up in a big, densely populated city.”
Her Morning Elegance
Gilding wants to dream like this…
Music video Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie
Medicate Me, Baby!
You know those gag gifts that come in novelty stores, such as Spencer Gifts, and ubiquitously there will be one such bottle called “Happy Pills”. Always filled with some brightly colored — and rather horribly tasting — hardshell coated candy, Happy Pills can be found damn near everwhere — in other words, ubiquitously. (Teehee…Gilding loves that word.) Though their horrible tasting contents always make the pills just frickin nasty and, frankly, anything but happiness inducing. But what if it didn’t have to be that way. What if those little pills of promised happiness were actually a cure all of happiness…wait, me thinks that came out wrong. Oh well, you get the idea.
Marion + Merche, of the graphic design and architecture firm, Studio M, launched their first project: a candy store in Barcelona called Happy Pills. Posed with a difficult store location — hubbed direct of center of cathedral churches, several other stores, and no where near the open smiling mouths of caramel consuming children and their schools — Studio M had to come up with an extra clever marketing design to grab the attention, and money, from its demographic of Barcelona adults and tourists. Given that adults, even as piggish as they are, don’t eat candy in the same fervor as children, it was necessary to treat candy as something that appealed to the senses; “to eat something sweet entails a small ascent of the mood.” Thus candy for this store has become small mouthfuls of happiness — and so the store’s name was born, Happy Pills. Given a pharmecutical touch with its clever packaging of first aid kits, medicine bottles, and days of the week pill sorters, Happy Pills markets its candy as colorful drops of delicious aspirins and vitamins.
Cute and clever, the candies and their chic medicinal inspired packaging make them an any-time-of-the-year gift, but perhaps Gildling shall try creating her own packaged version this year for Valentines.
Link: Marion + Merche
Save the Planet, Make a Bowl
Remember Gulnur Ozdaglar from this earlier post of Gilding’s? Though it was one of Gulnur’s pieces of Jewelry that was spotlighted, Gildin did mention that also out of her PET repurposing she also creates unusually organic shaped bowls (and jellyfish chandeliers). And lo and behold, while perusing Instructables Gilding came across Gulnur’s tutorial on how to create your very own PET made bowls.
Link: Instructables
A Whole Other Beast of Beauty
If Christian Dior hadn’t had her by their Spring 2009 Haute Couture line, they had her by their shoes. Check out these amazing beauties! Those heels were meant for Parisian strolls. While perusing the photo gallery of Dior’s runway show one overlooker asked her “Where would you wear those dresses?” Silly man. And, of course, the answer was, “Every-fucking-where! Its Dior!” I’d wear those gowns grocery shopping. Sacrilege? Gilding doesn’t think so. Nothing is worse than amazing fashion never seeing the light of day because one “has no where to where it too.” You MAKE a place to wear it when its this gorgeous. Besides, how much fun would it be to be the center of attention of the whole frickin’ populus as you lounge eating grapes in the center of the park in one of this lines’ amazing beauties. As if I’d need a reason before to be the center of attention, but this — this brooks a whole other beast of beauty. Vanity, thy name is Gilding and this is her Dior (said with breathless abandon).
Yeah, Gilding likey. She’s going to finish daydreaming now.
Link: Coutorture
Imagination Dies When a Child Doesn’t Read
This year’s The Gift of Reading campaign from the Literacy Foundation conveys one simple message: “When a child doesn’t read, imagination disappears.” Playing off such childhood favorites as “Faith, trust, and pixie dust” and its darker counterpart “Everytime someone says ‘I don’t believe in fairies’, another one drops dead somehwere!”, the campaign’s slogan is a quickly catchy statement that floods us with good memories of childhoos daydreams with the dangers that happen when we “don’t beleive.”
Equally gruesome to the idea is the visual depiction put forth in the campaign posters:
Peter Pan in a wheelchair, a frail and elderly man where life and time have left their mark on him. Looking up at a shooting star from out of an open hospital room window, he appears sad, weighted down by the hospital bracelet on his wrist.
Cinderella wanders the corridors of a hospital, leaning on her IV drip like death walking. Wearing her ball gown, only one slipper upon her foot, her skin is sallow and her body gaunt, she is vidibly worn down by illness.
Think that’s hearbreaking, you should see Little Red Riding Hood die in the TV advertisement.
Link: Literacy Foundation
