The Bleat Goes On

Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist James Lileks is one of my long-time Web heroes: he's written the pointedly piquant Bleat, an old-fashioned Web-Log, for years. He's also the creator of the Gallery of Regrettable Food, and one of the original Gobbler Motel websites on The Institute of Official Cheer - that site that inspired me to create my own, the Requiem for the Gobbler Motel. I think Lileks is one of the funniest and most intelligently sarcastic writers around, but I thought you might want to check out his take on the the new WTC design competetion finalists.

"This is the problem I have with so much of modern architecture: it seems a sin to let a building be a single thing. It has to fragment, shatter, recombine, and stick fingers in the eyes of the beholders. It’s as if the architects think they’ve failed if we walk away from a building satisfied, or find harmony in the idea. These are not harmonious buildings. This is atonality. If the original WTC consisted of two hands banging out an obvious C chord, this is the visual equivalent of dropping a cat on the keyboards."

Sadly, I tend to agree with him. Krrrrrrrep. Bleeech.

There, Mr. Lileks. Now will you answer my emails? ;)

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