I've been holding on to this for too long. A pink rabbit of enormous proportions is resting on a hillside in Piemonte, Italy. Also in the department of really strange, giant-sized landscape art is a chair and desk combo in England. Really.
Not unlike the still brewing concept floating for San Francisco's Treasure Island - Landmark Communities hopes to create a "Sustainability Enclave" in the Nevada desert. It's one of those unlikely, w holistic, master planned communities that is being marketed specifically for its completeness. Both are trying in essence to capture the same market of residents - those people looking for something new and totally flawless. According to the Nevada developers,
"Residents of Traditions will have a great opportunity for interaction with their neighbors and should develop a real sense of community," said Donna Kristaponis, Lyon County Manager. "This, in turn, builds a great lifestyle. Similar new communities across the country are in extremely high demand."
This is literally the greatest, most topical thing I've ever run into on Wikipedia (and right on the front page nonetheless!)
Dogpatch USA was this hillbilly-theme park in Arkansas that's been closed for years. This thing is a monstrosity. But sadly it reminds me of one of the beaten down theme parks of my area, Splash! Family Fun Park. However, this one is funny because it was so blatantly "Southern" and just downright filthy. This quote sums it up nicely, front to back, and screwed-up all around.
After struggling a few more years, the park was closed for good on October 14, 1993. In 1997 citizens of Dogpatch, Arkansas (which had been the postal designation of the area since the park opened) voted unanimously to change the name to Marble Falls, its original name. Curiously, no records exist of such a vote to change the name to Dogpatch in 1966, and residents who lived there in 1966 and are still living there today claim it was done against their will.
Some Interesting Ones
13) Build a System of Community Aquaculture
Most New Orleanians, black or white, rich or poor, love seafood, and many of them make live-caught fish and shellfish part of their regular diet. They put down crab traps, crawfish traps, or slat traps for catfish or they fish, net shrimp, dig oysters or otherwise forage in the waters of bayou, river, lake, and marsh. Designing a network of managed nurseries for a variety of kinds of marine life, which can be harvested by ordinary people with ordinary tools, could make New Orleans a model for a sustainable city in a difficult place. Use the place, don’t fight it. The people of New Orleans always have.
11) Bring Back the Music (Part 2): Make a Place for the Musicians
Whether by setting aside a place or places in the city, or simply by offering New Orleans musicians priority in housing, facilitate their return and support them with the kind of practice spaces, gathering places, and other amenities that will make recovering New Orleans a nurturing space for musicians. Bring our musicians back and invite the world’s musicians to join them. They will come.
1) Reassemble and Restore Social Capital
Two practically unrelated topics this morning: a rebuilt church in Germany and a nuclear fall-out bunker for sale in the UK.
No other city had received the wrath of the allied counter-offensive in Europe quite like Dresden. Controversy about the choice of Dresden as a target, a culturally significant city with relatively little industrial activity, has been a sore point for many Americans and British. One of the places that was destroyed by the fire-bombing raid was the Frauenkirche. 60 years later, it's been rebuilt (be sure to check out the slide show). It's a truly amazing structure.
A 240 acre underground nuclear fall-out bunker is going on the market in England. Like most cold war designs, this enormous facility was designed to protect the royal family and the government in case of a Soviet nuclear attack. Of course, once everybody realized that 4 minutes would be the longest warning possible from an intercontinental ballistic missile, the whole concept of retreating to a "safe place" became obsolete - nobody can evacuate that fast. So not the British have to unload this property to the private sector. Proposed uses: wine cellar, rave-party scene, data storage? Hey, if you've got a better idea it's only £5,ooo,ooo.
