Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold: the New Princeton University Art Museum! Or is that the box that it came in??? Yeah, I know, an old gag, but it still works. What you get here is just another exercise in fake originality. How many of these floating boxes are there in the world? more »
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Archive | Eyesore of the Month
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September 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the second coming of St. Thomas Parish Church Washington, DC (1517 18th Street NW, off Dupont Circle). Kind of looks like the musical instrument that the space aliens flew down to Earth in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977) to play the dumb-ass tune that more »
August 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the “Shipwreck Tower” in Prague, proposed to be the Czech Republic’s tallest building at 440 feet, about 40 stories. This humdinger was conceived, obviously, before Covid-19 raced around the world. What you get is another colossal art stunt incorporated into an office building, a virtue-signaling gag telling more »
July 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold: the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in downtown Dallas, Texas — if you can even call this inchoate mash-up of low-rise crapola, parking lots, and freeway ramps a downtown. The building was designed by Eyesore of the Month All-time Champeen, Thom Mayne (countless humdingers over the more »
June 2020
The Eyesore of the Month! Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the Grand Castle Apartment Homes, Granville, Michigan. “Live like a King!! the brochure says. Well, fer sure, because America is going medieval after the New Great Depression is through with us. Actually, there are federal penitentiaries that have better-designed neo-medieval details than more »
May 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Architect Thom Mayne and his Morphosis firm are great favorites here, year after year, and they’ve come up with a new humdinger expressing every trope of techno-narcisismo idiocy in circulation — at least until the corona virus put the schnitz on what used to be considered our more »
April 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold: The embassy of the Peoples’ Republic of China, Washington DC, a fortification undreamed of in the most garish nightmares of the Marquis de Vauban. Only this death-star was designed by American architect, the late I.M. Pei’s outfit, Pei Partnership. What were the Chinese expecting back in 2007? Godzilla? more »
March 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the Universita Luigi Bocconi, School of Economics, Milan, Italy by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, principals of Grafton Architects, Dublin, Ireland, winners of this year’s Pritzker prize. The Pritzker is considered the most prestigious prize in the architectural world. The Pritzker committee is crazy for Orwellian dystopias, and more »
February 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the Court of Justice (Provincial Offenses Office, no kidding), Brantford, Ontario, in Canada, our neighbor to the north. Kind of looks like a water-boarding salon. Or maybe try a relaxing session in the Iron Maiden sensory deprivation casket! Tired of manicures? Have your fingernails removed altogether more »
January 2020
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, Appleton Wisconsin’s new “Big Head” public sculpture by local artist Paul Bobrowitz, constructed of welded empty propane tanks. It occupies a site in one of Appleton’s historic districts. Contemporary art generally includes a manual of metaphysical theory to explain itself, but apparently this one was loosed upon the more »
December 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Here we are in the season of tinsel and silver bells as the decade of the Teensies runs out. Shopping for your loved ones? Why not take a Brink’s truck of dimes and quarters to the new Carvana vending machine in your area and spend four-and-a-half days feeding more »
November 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold Dubai’s Museum of the Future, the very first monumental building to be designed entirely by algorithm! The official hype sez: We will be a showplace for a new era – a center of creativity and hope where you can see, touch and shape our shared future. And more »
October 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum of Art at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. Wait…. Is that the museum or the dumpster behind the Museum? Oh, okay, it’s the Museum. Designed by the late Zaha Hadid. Her firm styles the job thusly: This dialogue of interconnecting more »
September 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the MSG “Sphere” coming to Las Vegas. No, it’s not named after the indispensable ingredient in General Tsao’s Chicken, but after the Madison Square Garden Corp, which, like everything else in this psychotic culture, has morphed into a supergigantic global enterprise — they’re putting up an more »
August 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the renovated Edmonton, Alberta, downtown main library… or is an alien invasion under way? It’s hard to imagine a more aggressively menacing building than this intergalactic war-wagon. Message: Surrender, you miserable earthlings! Your way-of-life is over. So it goes with the unending quest for cutting edge novelty in more »
July 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the stupid fucking idea du jour! The Penn15 Tower proposed for mid-Manhattan — as if the city needs another megastructure that will be transformed from an asset to a liability overnight in the long emergency ahead. Penn15 will be nearly the same height as the Empire State more »
June 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the Vancouver House condominiums by the Bjarke Ingels Group (“BIG,” as they style themselves — no grandiosity there). Does the building appear to want to topple over and crush you? Isn’t that cute? Beware of what you wish for, especially with the Cascadia Fault lurking in the more »
May 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page The real estate website Zillow sez: “this contemporary home has a European flare with a Manhattan feel. Perfect for entertaining….” Actually, I’d say it has a Soviet flare with a recycling bin feel, perfect for opening a large vein in a warm tub. It’s in a Hudson Valley more »
April 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the new world headquarters for the Danish clothing firm Bestseller in the tiny town of Brande (pop. 7,000): set to be the tallest building in Europe. What a breathtakingly stupid idea! I suppose they think it will minimize the human footprint on the terrain. Wrong. (Typical “gadget more »
March 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the new $100,000-per-night hotel suite at The Palms resort in Las Vegas, featuring artworks by the international art-and-design maestro Damien Hirst, plus design motifs by same to liven up the despondency-inducing gray color scheme and the nausea-inducing view of a city that is composed of at least more »
February 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the Burj al Babas, a $200 million ensemble of wannabe French castles in the Turkish town of Mudurnu, about 150 miles east of Istanbul. The castle-ettes are all empty. (No cassoulet for you!) The project, by a money-laundering outfit, called the Sarot Group pulled the plug on more »
January 2019
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the new San Diego Superior Court tombstone… er, light box… er, hydroponic grow station… er, Pez dispenser (remember them?)? Nominator Joshua Hardgrove says: “It ironically consolidates San Diego County’s criminal trial, family, and civil courts into a 25-story monstrosity. Bringing all your problems into one central location, more »
December 2018
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold London’s latest shwingin’ skyscraper, the proposed “Tulip” designed by starchitect Norman Foster as a companion for the already-built “Gherkin” and “The Shard.” London has decided to make itself a freak show city in these waning days of techno-industrial narcissmo. Obviously, the Tulip’s slender stem does not allow more »
November 2018
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the zippy new sidewalk treatment in downtown Austin, Texas, outside a corporate parking lot that is empty much of the day. Since there will never be any human pedestrians here to liven up the scene, the zig-zag pavement will have to provide all the excitement. (I get a more »
October 2018
Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the proposal for Boston University’s new Data Sciences Center (corporate naming rights TBD). Seventeen stories of stacked boxes — meant to signify a pile of books, according to the BU Public Relations office — it will be the tallest structure on the campus. Well, yahoo for that. more »
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Living in The Long Emergency
Available for pre-order
Publication March 2020
Click for autographed copies from Battenkill Books
Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward
Forget the speculation of pundits and media personalities. For anyone asking “Now what?” the answer is out there. You just have to know where to look.
In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century—the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now—surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.
Published by BenBella Books, Inc.
Too Much Magic
Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation
The nationally best-selling author of "The Long Emergency" expands on his alarming argument that our oil-addicted, technology-dependent society is on the brink of collapse—that the long emergency has already begun. Published by the Atlantic Monthly Press.
CBRN: Surviving Chemical, Biological, Radiological & Nuclear Events
"We live in a dangerous world, and it is constantly being made even more dangerous by technological developments, many of which bring with them unintended consequences which technology is often powerless to remedy."
CBRN, by Piero San Georgio and Chris Millenium is all about surviving, chemical, biological, and nuclear events. Important!