15 year ago...

Fifteen years ago Broadway changed for ever.
Fifteen years ago today Rent opened on Broadway.
Fifteen years ago Jonathan Larson died.

Rent is perhaps one of them most influential musicals of the past years, and it is perhaps one of the most influential musicals I've seen. The music is powerful, inspirational, and bold. Who can't remember the cast's interpretation of Seasons of Love, or the pretty much epic argument between Maureen and Joanne in Take Me or Leave Me? Growing up in (non-diverse) Mexico, this was perhaps one of the first times I saw an actual diverse group of people coexisting together and accepting each other for who they are. They may be bohemians, and unconventional to society's norms, but they definitely provoke the audience to think.

Jonathan Larson took risks when it came to writing a musical unlike anything seen on Broadway. He has inspired countless musicians, playwrights, actors and a long list of individuals inspired by his work. He's certainly one of those people who are gone too soon.

Perpective Lyrique

PERSPECTIVE LYRIQUE from 1024 on Vimeo.

First the streets of Paris (at least in Inception), now the facades of Lyon. In December, the Théatre des Celestins was the location of an unlikely phenomenon in the architecture world: a classical Beaux-Arts building smushed into a Gehry-esque blob. And all thanks to the vocal patterns of a very captive audience.

1024 Architecture, the duo who invented the oral video-mapping, first concentrated on simple but effective theatrical lighting . They described their installation Perspective Lyrique as focusing on “the interaction between body, space, sound, visual, low-tech and hi-tech, art and architecture.” According to Co.Design, the architects “created a custom program that would analyze the tones in an audience-member’s voice and then mathematically apply it as a deformation to the image in real time.”

-Via Architizer Blog

A Day of Cooking

Today was my first day off since I started classes this week. To wind down what was a pretty relaxing start to my last semester in college I decided to cook something I don't have time to cook through out the week. (Plus I get to put aside my thesis work just a little longer!) I went to my go-to college cookbook, Martha Stewart's Great Food Fast. This seems to be the staple book for me when it comes to cooking. My mother's base book is the Joy of Cooking, for others it's Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. To me, it's a book with good food, fast and with a picture next to the recipe! (Hey, I'm a visual person). What I learned today: cook books lie. A recipe's estimated time is never accurate. This soup's recipe I made says it take 20 minutes prep time. Peeling carrots alone was 10! Never trust a cook book with time. Just make sure you've got plenty of time to enjoy the kitchen.

Chinga goes BOOM!

Shanghai, China. 1990 & 2010. Via The Daily Wh.at

Over the past few years we've all heard of the architectural boom China has been going through. Beijing's 2008 Olympics were a clear example of what this Asian dragon can achieve. I've seen countless photos of the developments, the new towers and the impressive new master plans envisioned mostly by American and European architects and planners.

Today a friend shared this photo on Facebook and I was surprised to see how different Shanghai looks today compared to how it was back in 1990. Yes twenty years ago, Shanghai was not what it is today. The idea of a skyscraper was nonexistent. Today the idea of an open park seems to be what is missing.

I don't know what I feel of this fairly new urban development, but it is with out a doubt fascinating. I hope I can see it for myself sometime soon. I read recently in the New York Times that many architectural firms in the US are being commissioned by Chinese clients and American architects are gladly accepting jobs because they have unlimited budgets and no design restrictions: an architect's dream, right?

Maybe it's time to pick up language number five. Next step after college?

Legos - Not just a child's toy

I saw this art work by artist Justin LaRosa and Samuel Cox on Fubiz a few weeks ago and I really liked it. Legos are pretty much amazing, and it's great to see them go beyond a child's imagination.

Enjoy.

Brooklyn Snow

These are some photos from the second blizzard in New York City in three weeks. Somehow I managed to venture to the gym.

I'm Starting a Band

I've done these a couple of times, yet the combination of Wikipedia, Flickr and QuotationsPage haven't been cooperating. I think this time they did. My band seems to be a very mellow, acoustic kind of group. Our first gig is in Joe's Pub, soon.

Now you try it.

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last few words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use Photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.

And now I'm blogging...

There is no harm in postponing your work sometimes. That is what this blog is all about. It's about me postponing my real work. Instead I'll share whatever I'm feeling at the moment, or whatever nonsense I found online, or somehow relates to my daily life living in New York City.

It's good putting your work aside from time to time, and this will be my reminder for that.

Below, is the excerpt from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, where this blog takes its name from.

“On the little prince’s planet there were—as on all planets—good plants and bad plants. The good plants come from good seeds, and the bad plants from bad seeds. But the seeds are invisible. They sleep in the secrecy of the ground until one of them decides to wake up. Then it stretches and begins to sprout, quite timidly at first, a charming, harmless little twig reaching toward the sun. If it’s a radish seed, or a rosebush seed, you can let it sprout all it likes. But if it’s the seed of a bad plant, you must pull the plant up right away, as soon as you can recognize it. As it happens, there were terrible seeds on the little prince’s planet—baobab seeds. The planet’s soil was infested with them. Now if you attend to a baobab too late, you can never get rid of it again. It overgrows the whole planet. Its roots pierce right through. And if the planet is too small, and if there are too many baobabs, they make it burst into pieces.“It’s a question of discipline,“ the little prince told me later on. “When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet. You must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes, which they closely resemble when they’re very young. It’s very tedious work, but very easy. Sometimes there’s no harm in postponing your work until later. But with baobabs, it’s always a catastrophe.”