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It's fall in New York. October continues to be my favorite month of the year. Everything seems to slow down with a strange melancholy feeling that I enjoy. My favorite thing to do during this short period of time is to walk the streets of New York, and take pictures. I recently moved to a new neighborhood...left Manhattan for Ft. Greene, Brooklyn. This has to be one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in New York, lined with brownstones, and interesting old buildings. I have seen many gorgeous, and strange buildings throughout NY, but never have I seen anything like what I saw on Sunday. While walking down a street toward what seemed to be a park up in the distance I looked down a street to the left that I was crossing only to see this:

At first I thought it was just a dilapidated building, but quickly my eye adjusted and I started to think that this was done on purpose. As I got closer I could definitely see that this was some sort of art project or experiment:

The building looks like an old church with a larger apartment building thrown on top with a bunch of strange structures:

The top of the structure is a very intricate structure of windows that are mounted in directions not usually seen...the whole thing looks sturdy, and about to fall apart at the same time:

One window even has a door in it's place, with some chickenwire to keep people from falling out:

The building is located at the corner of Quincy St. and Downing St. in Ft. Greene / Clinton Hill if you would like to see it for yourself.

I was extremely intrigued by this building, and did a little research on the name "Broken Angel", which is what appears above the front door of the building (note the neat little mail drop on the left):

It turns out that the building belongs to an artist Arthur Wood, and his wife Cynthia Wood. Apparently he is a bit of a mad scientist as this New York Times article points out. One of my favorite lines from the article is Arthur's "kitchen clock" which is a series of pvc pipes that point at each other through the walls, which eventually point outside to a clocktower that stands tall in Brooklyn.

My friend Aaron was saying how he feels there is inspiration around every corner in New York, and I agreed with him. This has to be the most intriguing structure I have ever seen in New York, and saying that it is inspiring almost doesn't do it justice. Arthur has been working on the building for 30 years, and speaking to my mother she wondered why so many creative types tend to be a little...wacko.

I thought about that statement...wacko. Maybe Arthur is a little crazy, but I almost wonder if we are just the ones who are a little crazy having assimiliated into this environment that we all inhabit. Maybe if we all had a project such as Broken Angel to work on for a good portion of our lives we would all be happier. Apparently Arthur and his wife Cynthia are doing well, and happy in their early / mid seventies, and can even jam out with Dave Chappelle.

Posted by christopher andersson at 1:23 PM

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Looks like my earlier post where I persecute the inventors of the single play DVD at Microsoft was all for nothing. Got my blood pressure up all because of a hoax.

Posted by christopher andersson at 10:44 PM

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...at least we can all hope it will. After reading Jonathan Schwartz's piece about the distribution networks of software, and what we may be looking at in the very near future, I can say that there seems to be hope in the future of software. Google and Sun may not be the one's to pull it off, but they seem to be quite a pair for the challenge.

I might even download Solaris, and try to pony up some code whacking support.

Posted by christopher andersson at 11:47 PM

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Slashdot informed me of a Microsoft announcement that states they have invented a new type of disposable DVD. This may sound exciting to some, and especially to the people that will benefit in redmond, but it made my chest feel compressed. The thought of hundreds of millions of disposable DVD's flooding the world, trash, and landfills; not to mention the resources used to produce them and the packaging that they come in, blech.

I wonder if the inventors have had any thoughts about the waste that their invention will create.

To the inventors:

Couldn't you have used the obvious creative problem solving abilities you have to improve the world slightly with this product instead of just adding yet another disposable piece of plastic to litter the ground?

Maybe you could look at some sunflower sprouting cell phones for some inspiration?

Being in the position you are in you figure that you could convince management that it would be a good idea to put some thought into the obvious problem your wasteful invention contributes to. Or are you so weak that you felt your life depended following orders without any objection?

You know it's all too often that we just blame the large corporation, but I think we need to start blaming who's truly at fault...the people doing the work. Just because you work for a company doesn't mean you have to blindly follow orders. If you have the capacity to invent something like a disposable DVD, then I'm sure you posess more than enough brain power to know it's obvious implications.

Posted by christopher andersson at 9:27 PM

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