Where I should be today

I've mentioned it here before, but because it's on my mind, here's a nice story about Bill Mazeroski's epic, Game 7, World Series-winning homerun, which was struck 49 years ago today, at 3:36 p.m., about a mile and a half from where I sit. As I type, a few dozen faithful are gathered there around a boombox playing a tape of the game. In half an hour, they'll cheer, and 17 years of losing, and half a century of aging, will be washed away.

My 2010 Pirates Forecast

Just for the record. I'll probably revisit this next April, once we know what happens in the offseason.

Oh, and to establish a baseline: my prediction for 2009, emailed to a friend on Opening Day, was 72 wins if the pitching held up, 62 wins if it didn't. The pitching has been OK this year (although it could be argued that Snell and Gorzo together represent a failure), but of course they traded away all but 2 of their most talented position players. I don't think I'm on the hook for having foreseen that last spring.

If the Pirates start 2010 with this group of starters (including, possibly, Clement coming up to platoon with Garrett Jones at 1B), I expect them to play at a sub-.400 pace – that is, about 100-loss baseball. Improvements due to youth development and Doumit returning at least somewhat to form should make this a team that can score at least 3.5 runs/game, which should get them within sniffing distance of 60 wins (note that a team with 3.5 RS/game and 4.5 RA/game is a 61 win team). I expect aggregate performance from the starting pitchers to about match what we’ve seen the last 3 months; the big question mark is the bullpen, which is costing us something like half a run a game relative to a mediocre pen. If Neal Huntington cobbles together a professional pen around a resurgent Hanrahan and Capps, then I think we could get above .400 – if nothing goes wrong. If Jones turns into a pumpkin, if Cedeno regresses, if Doumit misses 2 months again – if anything along those lines happens, then I think we could comfortably be on pace for 110 losses.

That said, I don’t see any way that the whole season plays out like that. Among Tabata, Alvarez, Lincoln, and Alderson, I expect at least one to reach the bigs and make an impact. Depending which one it is, that’s worth 5-10 wins. In other words, if none of the better players on the existing roster blow up (due to injury or general failure), I expect to see ~95 losses, plus or minus 5.

To do much better than that, either 2 of the MiLers need to make an impact or Milledge and/or someone else needs to take a big step forward (or a FA needs to really pan out). I think it would take only a couple things going wrong to do much worse than that: 110 losses is in reach if none of the minor leaguers step up.

Architects as Problem Solvers

A professor of mine who was also the onetime head of the CMU architecture department used to say that architects are, primarily, problem-solvers. She had a well-worn talk on the topic, titled "The Twelve Professions of Architecture," outlining all of the different jobs for which architects are well-suited (only a couple of which look like what we think of as "being an architect"). But the thesis was that (and I apologize for my 15 years later paraphrase) the skillset of the architect is only incidentally building materials and the like; it's primarily and fundamentally problem-solving.

I'm currently involved with a couple of projects (one only potential right now), both sprucing up existing, pretty crummy commercial/industrial buildings. The Equipment Co. is in a really nondescript cinderblock building, constructed in 3 campaigns on 3 lots with 3 different wall heights and no consistency in window sizes or symmetry or any of the other things we rely on for making buildings look "good." My job is to figure out — within a tiny budget — some way to make it look good anyway.

The Appliance Co. is in a crumbling old building, once kind of Tudor-ish, with a 1950s storefront that is also crumbling, plus aging and outdated GE and Frigidaire signs. How to make it look good?

There are various other constraints, but those are the nuts of the problems (note that I've already done a lot of sifting through issues to identify the key components that need to be solved). The Appliance Co. is actually pretty easy — take out the clutter, pull the whole thing together with a cornice above the storefront height, and use all new materials above (stucco) and below (??) the cornice. Easy peasy. The Equipment Co. is really really hard. Even if we reskinned the whole thing, it's still a mess compositionally. So what I need to do is to think about ways of tying things together or, alternately, acknowledging differences. One way to do this is through almost-literal "narrative" — part of the building is offices, the remainder is shop space. Use materials and colors to explicate that. Another way would be to impose a "narrative" — define a line, even if it doesn't correspond to any function, and use that to establish what gets metal panels and what gets paint.

But my point is that building-knowledge is only incidental to the problems I need to solve here. My first task is to identify the moving pieces that make up the problem — where does the sign go, how do we direct visitors to the office door? — and the next task is to identify the narrative that will tell me how to place the pieces. And while the architect's problem-solving skills are honed for dealing with buildings (both as objects and as containers of space), they are readily applicable to broader sorts of problems. I've actually long though that it would be good to have more architects in politics: the job already includes some of the prerequisites (public speaking, flattery of the rich), but, more importantly, the problem-solving approach is radically different from that of lawyers, who of course dominate American political life.

A few notes on the Pittsburgh Story

The coming of the G-20 to Pittsburgh is really all anyone can talk about around here (well, aside from Troy's knee). Over at Pittsblog, Mike Madison has been running a series with his take on what has happened to make Pittsburgh the subject of so many glowing national and international stories over the past year or so. Now, Mike is much more of a skeptic - especially regarding Pittsburgh - than I am, but I think his take is sound and worthwhile, if hardly definitive. One post in particular, I felt obliged to comment on, more or less as follows:

A couple notes to what I think is a basically correct argument, about the myth that Pittsburgh has thrived after deindustrialization by dint of hard work and "grit.":

Mike's point about sitting around waiting for Big Steel or Big Something Else to save the city is a really important one. In 1994 I was interning for a regional heritage/tourism org and talked to some fellow interns who were living in Johnstown for the summer. They described to me the crowd in local bars as "old men sitting around waiting for Big Steel to come back." Even then - 15 years ago - such thinking was a thing of the past in Pittsburgh. I'm sure there were a few bars like that, but they were a relic, not the dominant way of thinking in the city. Instead, the focus was on how to turn the new things we were doing (biomed, robotics, computer science) into the Next Big Thing. There was always the underlying, ancient mindset of hoping for the next Carnegie or Westinghouse, but the social and political discussion in the city was all about moving forward. As a concrete example, I'll note that, when the Hazelwood works were going down a few years later, there was interest from an outside company in building a modern coke works there, and the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. I can't vouch for the reaction you'd get in other parts of SWPA or elsewhere in the Rust Belt, but it was clear that, by the late 90s, the city had decisively abandoned the Big Steel mindset.

The other thing I want to talk about is "grit." I guess it depends how you define it - there's a certain bullheaded, romantic notion that I agree is inapt to describe what has happened. But there are 2 quotes that I think are relevant for describing the Pittsburgh mindset. One is from Laurie Graham's "Singing the City," and I don't have it exactly, but it's to the effect that, in Pittsburgh, there's a sense that a desk job is what you get if you don't want to work. Now that's a very blue collar, outdated way of thinking, but I also think it has left remnants in the region's workforce: outside employers are often pleased at the productivity they find at their Pittsburgh locations, and I think it ties back to the idea that jobs are for working at, in a very practical, hands-on way. The other quote is actually about Chicago, but I think it applies equally here (and surely throughout the Rust Belt): "I've always been impressed by people from Chicago. New York is talk and LA is flash, but Chicago is work." The gist is similar, but it clarifies exactly what Pittsburgh is not about: talk and flash.

Mike writes, "I know a lot of enthusiastic and energetic movers and shakers, in the arts, in the neighborhoods, in politics, and in entrepreneurship -- and they aren't 'gritty' at all" Well, I know the same kinds of folks, and I disagree with his characterization. To me the clearest example is a local reading series that has a serious national reputation (they are booked well over a year ahead, and have to turn down requests from established authors). Its founders are from the region, but not the city, and lived away from here for a long time before coming back and, soon after, starting this series. And in conversations with them (they're close friends), the distance they see between themselves and their counterparts in places like NYC and SF is clear, and it's precisely around the kind of issues I'm getting at. The acclaimed NYC reading/performance series The Moth came to town recently, and it was oozing with self-congratulation in a way that frankly disgusted my friends. The Pittsburgh reading series is all about getting top-flight talent and presenting it in a comfortable, cheap, and unpretentious setting; the New York reading series is all about letting everyone know how great the NYC reading series is.

I could list other examples - from the arts, from the neighborhoods - but I think you get my point. The reading series and its founders aren't "gritty," but they sure are Pittsburgh.

The Most Important Event of My Lifetime

This has arrived in my city.

You know all the cupcake hype of the last few years? Fuck that shit. It's all about the donuts. I will now be biking down to the Strip at the drop of a hat.

UPDATE: I have been, and it's all it's cracked up to be. The small donuts are tiny, delicate little things - probably weigh less than a traditional "donut hole." Even the large are small - less than half the size of even a modest donut. But it's all good.

An Additional Note

On the Dylan story below:

I understand why someone might have called the cops. But I cannot fathom why the cops felt the need - and the right - to put him in a police car and take him back to his hotel to ascertain his identity. WTF, America?

Dylan's Inspiration

I've wondered in the past just how someone like Bob Dylan, who's been world-famous since he was 20, is able to write the kinds of songs that Dylan writes. Obviously, he writes some abstract songs, or songs that are based on his personal experiences as a world-famous rock star, but he also writes (and has always written) songs that seem to be grounded in experiences that he hasn't had in almost 50 years - the experiences of an anonymous wanderer.

Turns out he sometimes is an anonymous wanderer. I think that we probably underestimate how easy it can be to become anonymous, especially if you run counter to expectation - who would think that scruffy-looking white guy is a rock star? He probably couldn't go unrecognized in (supposedly anonymous and aloof) Manhattan, but he sure can on the backstreets of Long Branch, NJ.

Does Health Care Reform Stand a Chance?

Yesterday morning, news from TPM had me feeling very grim. After months of Blue Dog wankery, Republican obstructionism, and Democratic ineffectuality, reports that town halls were being hijacked by crowds of Teabaggers (organized by well-funded Republican operatives, of course), whose concerns were of course being taken very seriously by the media had me ready to give up entirely. And health care isn't just a political concern for me - last fall, with a 6 week old baby plus a four year old, our family went off health insurance for 4 months (COBRA was simply too expensive, and SCHIP takes forever to get enrolled). My family needs the public plan.

But this makes me feel much, much better. A Daily Kos diarist from Indiana reports from a town hall held there in which the Good Guys showed up in force, organizers were prepared for and prevented disruption, and the meeting proceeded in a democratic, rather than mobocratic, spirit. Combine that with the fact that, if you scratch a teabagger, you'll find a birther, and I start to feel a bit of hope that August will not kill the dream of worthwhile health care reform in America.

What's Wrong With This Building?

This is from the irritating (to me) Times series "What You Get For...", in which they pick a price and look at real estate from around the country. It's irritating because the vast majority of the prices are not merely beyond my personal means, but beyond practically anything in Pittsburgh, making the whole thing something I can't identify with. I don't really care what $2 million dollars buys in Miami, Austin, and Montana.

Anyway, this isn't about price, it's about design. I suspect the neighbors hate this, because neighbors like boring colonials and such, but they real reason to hate this is that it's an awful, awful facade (I don't know anything else about the design, so maybe it has other virtues; frankly, based on the facade, I kind of doubt it). Let's talk design concepts:

Symmetry: Either you've got it, or you don't. Classical buildings - think the Parthenon or the US Capitol - are rigidly symmetrical, while Romantic buildings - think Queen Annes or rambling castles - are not, usually using vertical and horizontal elements to create an asymmetrical balance. There's a certain leeway in symmetry that can allow, say, an off-center front door in an otherwise symmetrical building, as long as it's balanced by something else off-center, and as long as the overall composition remains pure. But this building is neither here nor there: assuming that the panels are evenly-sized, the center window on top is just off-center, the ribbon windows are not equidistant from the corners, and the first floor openings are arrayed without any reference to a central axis. Yet the overall effect is plainly intended to be symmetrical - this kind of High Modern architecture is Classical, not Romantic.

Regulating lines: These design guides can be implicit - used by the architect to promote consistency and balance but not actually apparent on the building - or explicit - used by the architect to illustrate the presence of these things (Frank Lloyd Wright used to cut grids into his concrete floors). The eight vertical panels are (or appear to be) equal in width, making for explicit regulating lines. They should be used to provide centerlines and edges for objects in the facade; they certainly can't responsibly be ignored. Yet that is precisely what the architect has done. None of the upper floor windows is evenly spaced with respect to the panels (oddly, the ribbons both appear to have the same slightly-off relationship with their panels; this could be interesting if there were follow-through elsewhere). Downstairs, it appears that the architect started with the front door recess, which is symmetrical about its panels, and then simply spaced the two (different size) garage doors evenly down the facade, with the result that the middle door has one edge aligned with a panel joint, and the other garage door is just asymmetrical with respect to its panels. Just awful.

Heights/Floors: Where are the floors and ceilings in this building? Why are the panel heights the way they are? We have no idea. The design idea appears to have been that the occupied floors would have panels of a certain height - 9 feet by the looks of it - and then intermediate panels would designate the structural sandwich of the ceiling/beams/floor-or-roof. But it is incredibly unlikely that the sandwich between first and second floors is really that thick and, more importantly, it makes the building unbalanced, a bit top-heavy. The way we expect buildings to be - whether from some sort of natural intuition or from lifelong experience - is like a Classical column - base, shaft, and capital. Andrea Palladio, iconic architect of the Renaissance, created palazzos with a heavy, rusticated base that contained the ground floor, semi-public, quotidian functions (think garage and foyer), a light, relatively simple upper floor with elegant public spaces, and an ornate attic floor that contained bedrooms while capping the building. Louis Sullivan adapted this concept for his great skyscrapers, in which the middle floors repeated for a hundred or more feet. We still see this form in tract houses with concrete block bases, vinyl siding walls, and dormers within the roof. Now, a Modern building need not heed these old-fashioned ideas. But why are the intermediate panels the heights they are? Why is the "sandwich" panel taller than it need be? Why is the top panel (which covers the parapet above the flat roof) taller still? If there's no base, why is there an attic (the top panel, the height of which hints at an attic or cornice)? The whole thing feels top-heavy and unresolved (imagine if, instead, the "sandwich" panel were narrower, perhaps 12 or 15 inches - which is surely about what the actual structural sandwich is - and there were another one above the second floor, and then an "attic" panel not quite so high; now you'd have rhythm going up, a lighter attic, and more weight anchoring it).

But design is subjective, right? Maybe this architect doesn't give a whit for my rigid, old-fashioned ideas of how to design (although Le Corbusier, the Modern master whose style this building approximates, would be on my side). But if that were the case, then s/he'd have to do a lot more to subvert widely-understood concepts of how to design. Take pure, white panels and apply them to a Victorian form. Pull a Gehry and bend the shapes. Get really asymmetrical, not just barely. I could even imagine a slightly-off Modern building that works, thanks to good taste. But there's nothing - nothing - in this design that suggests to me that the architect knew the rules yet chose to break them. Instead I see a designer who didn't understand the language s/he was trying to speak, and produced Modern-inflected gibberish. The architect as Ugly American.

[Update: I hadn't looked at the slideshow, which shows the interior and the rear balcony/patio. There's nothing as egregious there, but also nothing that makes me want to take any of the above back. There is one unforgivable downspout, but that's venal.]