The decline of the visual world along Interstate 5.

Taking a road trip up to Seattle area for Christmas. Nothing focuses the mind and lower back like spending more than a day riding a Greyhound bus through three states, and one happens to be California which is, you know, pretty big. Aside from the whole sitting-in-one-place for hours thing, it was an enjoyable bus ride. Many interesting women ride the Greyhound. All that time gazing out the window you inevitably learn a few things about the commercial geography of the land traversed. I had an even epiphany half way through Oregon about architecture - specifically about why I had very little interest in the topic of building design as a child, yet I now as an adult find it fascinating. The reason is that at least in the United States, most architecture is garbage, and only upon discovering notable exceptions to the mediocrity did I realize that how and what we build is actually an exciting and consequential field of human endeavor.
Small and medium sized towns along the I-5 corridor are practically interchangeable, characterized by the ubiquitous homogeneity of the corporate outlet. The RV wholesale lots all look the same, the fast food greasepits all look the same, the retail stripmalls are all constructed from identical blueprints with identical fake siding facades, the ticky-tacky housing blights the eye after many miles with the soul-eroding boredom of its all-encompassing sameness, the same motel and hotel chains iterate ad infinitum. Very rarely does anything visible from the highway express any significant individuality, and finally the little towns all blur together into one unending advertisement for itself. Only the older buildings and big cities show any hint of unique character. It is a triumph of commerce over aesthetics, function over form. Simon and Garfunkel's "Each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factory" captures the spirit of it, although now the factories are no longer here, manufacturing jobs having fled to overseas low wage markets. The retail service industry multinational institutions dominate the economic structure, smaller operation mom-and-pop stores having become largely an anachronism. For many Americans, it's the only visual world they've ever known and over time being surrounded by it's homogeneity erodes our ability to imagine any other possible social environment. The logoland moves capital around voraciously, reproducing itself. There is an ever diminishing set of expectations rooted in visual blandness.

I'm in Seattle now and ran around today looking at tall buildings downtown. There's been a construction boom during my decade-long absence from my home city. The downtown is now lively and upscale. I'm discovering again that it's a beautiful city, a testament to the value of quality architecture and urban planning. There really ought to be better buildings to look at in more places.

And what is up with our obsession with the 90-degree angle? There must be some historical lineage that accounts for this, I must research this. There's so many different kinds of shapes...

Going home for Christmas

I'm looking forward to going to Seattle for Christmas. My buddy is going to help me put the data on my cellphone onto the internet, so look forward to pictures soon.

Some new obsessions: crying Boehner, Wikileaks. More later.