Most of my highschool friends didn’t go too far—they’re still in Orange County, or at least in California. I pulled up and left for Berkeley, so I was at least in the same state, a seven hour drive away. Most of my Berkeley friends stayed pretty put—I moved to the other side of the planet. Now I’m back in the same country, but grad school’s a different beast, a motley congregation of people from somewhere else. Once again, seeing a lot of them will eventually require flying very far away.

So, the plan? Move back to California, one of the few places almost everyone can agree is nice to visit. In league with Kunal’s Long-term Assembly Project, pick out a place in Berkeley, South Bay, San Mateo, heck may be even SF, be close enough to enough close friends for frequent dinners and staying-late-for-wine-or-beer. Try to convince more friends to follow with promises of the good life, one of the few places in America with a little bit of everything for everyone. Live out the rest of my life in the sweet spot of social and material bliss.

For half my life, a Bush has been in the White House. For a third of my life, the second Bush has been driving my country into the ground, and all I did was stand idly and watch.

Now, in one fell swoop, Republican tactics of divide and conquer are obsolete. Confidence in the American process, our unique ability to heal the greatest of tragedies, has been restored. Greatest of all, Obama has made it okay to be optimistic. After a decade of cynical, sardonic, pessimistic American culture, he’s made it okay to hope.

The next four years are going to be a bumpy, harsh time—for our economy, for our society, for everything we are. With Obama at the head, I look forward to it. We’re privileged to be alive here, now, an amazing time half a century in the making.

Then there’s Joe Biden, who owned almost every issue and every rebuttal. Unlike Palin, he always answered the damn question—directly, concisely, with copious evidence and a rhetorical right hook. He was firm, responsive, and always clearly knew exactly what he was talking about. Frankly, he did a better job than Obama did last week. His only potential flaw is that the camera caught him smirking at Palin a few too many times, which might have turned off some of our more delicate, otherwise completely deaf independent voters.

That’s all very horrible, and predictably there’s been a worldwide recall of Chinese dairy products… and products using Chinese powdered milk:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said White Rabbit candy has been added to its list of products being inspected at ports of entry, but that no melamine-tainted goods from China of any sort have turned up yet. Nonetheless, some ethnic grocers started removing the popular candies from their shelves. (AP: “China tainted milk crisis triggers global recalls“)

No, no no no, t-this isn’t, this, nooooooo! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! DAMN YOU CHINA! For those who weren’t aware, White Rabbit candies are, like, my most favorite candy ever—ridiculously sweet milky chewy candy wrapped in delightfully translucent rice paper. What if White Rabbit makers Guan Sheng Yuan goes out of business because of the worldwide collapse of the White Rabbit market? This isn’t like the war in Iraq or the collapse of Wall Street—this is something I’m feeling right here, right now. A world without White Rabbit is a world not worth knowing.

(The following was originally an email.)

Mornin’ folks, three cynical things:

Kieran Long skewers the 2008 Venice Biennale: “Venice architecture biennale is like nerds talking about sex.” Basically, he makes the point that the architectural avant-garde has become comically impotent. Money quotes:

“It’s a truth commonly held about Hadid’s work that whatever you think of her now, those early paintings were simply amazing. I bumped into Geoff Shearcroft from London architect AOC in that room. He suggested to me that despite that axiom, The Peak is actually a really boring building—’a dog,’ in his words. ‘Look at the section,’ he said. I did, and he’s right: 3m ceiling heights in a kind of car-park arrangement, no discernible spatial quality or tuning of light, little description, let alone celebration of the circulation.”

“The Arsenale is full of pieces like this—by people who are getting old and have a pressing need to reassure each other that they are artists.”

“This is not a strong time for architecture. It can be seen from the lack of publications, the lack of vision in exhibitions, and the focus on design service rather than the art of architecture. It is irresponsible not to focus a biennale on buildings.” -Greg Lynn

Robert Sumrell’s 2001 thesis at SCI_Arc on, among other things, the emotional deadening represented by Muzak. (Unfortunately the final thesis doc seems to be missing, but check out the visual argument and the proposal, in that order.)

“The mass acceptance of Kurt Cobain points to the fact that all resistance, sadness, and pain is now relegated to a background condition and is experienced solely as an aesthetic. Cobain made alienation desirable and attractive to mass culture. After 1994, disaffection is no longer something to be relieved or feared. This is the final collapse of naturalized emotion and the total flattening of affect. Muzak no longer produces canned music to direct emotion, it is emotion itself which is now canned.”

Finally, a September 10th post from Kazys Varnelis’ blog, “Ambience and Attention,” on the fall and decline of architecture’s first and last experiential outpost—the ambient.

“…our ambient attention is increasingly being occupied by digital media, from a constant stream of Facebook status updates, Twitter tweets, and SMS messages. I should add that the iPod also figures in this, painting a soundscape on the environment that creates an emotional ambience that simply overwhelms any architectural environment…. (…) If architecture cedes the ambient environment to technology, what of architecture’s ambitions?”

So where did the meaning go? It’s a complex issue, perhaps the end result of the modernization project—but, in the spirit of the lynching party, may I finger the Circulation Diagram… the goddamn Circulation Diagram. Why are we so obsessed with the nominal connection of tortured, pastel-shaded chunks of “program”? We’ve completely abstracted everything human, everything relevant out of architecture.

“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.” -”Graham”/Don Cheadle, Crash

Ladies, Gentleman, the whole world pities us.

Factors in the Democrat’s favor this year: a disastrous economy, an unpopular war, an incumbent president with a 30% approval rating, far more money and better organization than the other side, a candidate who is charismatic, smart, accomplished and eloquent, an opponent who is old, out of touch, disliked by a large portion of his own party and a Washington insider when people want change.

Factors in the Republican’s favor this year: the Democratic candidate is black.

Result: the race is dead-even.

No matter who wins, you can learn a lot about America just by looking at where the race stands today.
-“ND¢” on Metafilter

This is what will happen if Obama and McCain score exactly the same states Kerry and Bush did in 2004. Look at that huge sea of red. (I hope you had a bucket ready.)

If McCain wins, what in the fuck are we going to do? I don’t know about you folks, but my entire damn life is in this fucked-up country. We all joked about moving to Canada the first and… and second time Bush won—this time, I wonder if it really would be in our own self-interest. Do you want your life’s wealth in a failing currency? Do you want your house, your land in a failing country? Really, Canada’s not far enough. Perhaps the scariest thing is that there isn’t a square foot on this planet outside America’s fetid grasp—I don’t think there’s such a thing as outrunning Uncle Sam’s shadow.

Everyone: pray for the debates. Successful debates. Pray that, against all evidence, a strong performance by Obama won’t somehow translate into more points for McCain.

Actually, you know what, pray for Barack Obama. Pray as hard as you fucking can. Is there anyone here who can even begin to imagine what it’s like to wake up as Obama, day after day, to have to get out of bed knowing that another dump truck of Republican bullshit is ready right outside your door—all because you dared try to give Americans a better government, a better life than what they actually deserve? The fact that Obama knows this and gets up anyway, gets up and walks outside and willingly faces an unimaginable nightmare for what he believes in—that’s the last thing that keeps me going.

If this sounds a bit Orwellian, that’s because it is. The rousing cheers Sarah Palin got tonight at the RNC made me want to vomit. It’s hard to believe that this was once Abraham Lincoln’s party.