It debuted during the Super Bowl, and though it was upsetting at the time, the commercial was so bad I just assumed it would go away. But it hasn’t. You can’t have ESPN on for 45 minutes without seeing it. I was hesitant to even mention the name of the company doing the advertising, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the commercial. There are many, many reasons to dislike this awful ad. Here are just a few.
Yesterday, while coming back to the office, I was pulled over for turning right at a red light where, apparently, there are two signs prohibiting that. The officer was on a motorcycle. As the officer was approaching my car, I caught a quick glimpse in my rearview. Probably too quick, since the first thing I said was, “Sorry, ma’am.” To the male officer. Anyway, I guess the real point of this is don’t turn right on red at the intersection of Ross and the frontage road of 75. And just say, “Sorry, officer,” if you do. Or say nothing. Yes, say nothing. Or just repeat the Jay-Z parts from the second verse of this.
Kevin Buchanan runs a blog called Fort Worthology. If you live in Cowtown and care about urbanism or design, you already know this. Well, Buchanan recently paid a visit to our fair city to attend a talk at the AIA Dallas Center for Architecture. When Buchanan made the short walk from the Center for Architecture to Saint Ann, he discovered just how poorly designed that part of Uptown is. He also found what might be a pretty good joke. Recommended reading. (Also, it appears that Buchanan’s discovery has gone a bit viral.)
Sarah Cockrell's bridge, which replaced ferry service across the Trinity operated by John Neely Bryan (sorry John)
Something has been bothering me about the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge ever since I read this post by Jason last week. In it, Lynn McBee, a “super-fundraiser” who is helping with this weekend’s opening celebration for the new Calatrava-designed bridge, compares the impact the bridge will have on the western portion of the city to that of the Brooklyn Bridge.
I must post this. It is FortWorthology’s pic. My picture is of him taking the picture which has since made the rounds of urbanists and bike/pedestrian advocates around the country. New York, Copenhagen, Vancouver, and some identified locale in Sweden are all having a good laugh at our expense. We should be used to it by now, since the starchitects we commission for the various objects around the city are still having a good laugh. Likely while rolling around in a bed of cash.
I do appreciate the reply Kevin received on one of his tweets from Philip Winn who added to Churchill’s famous quotation: “…is it any wonder what shape we’re in?”
Kevin and I stumbled upon this after the Bright Lights, Great City? panel where I was only able to down one beer while on the mic. I needed more. So I told Kevin and the two female accompani-… accompani-… accompany us about this little oasis of a place called St. Ann’s Court. Not the building, but the bar/restaurant, which is a spectacular little gem of a restoration.
I’m pretty sure I saw the quote lining a parking garage first, which is immaterial. But I led the way since I knew where I was going. What did matter is that Kevin was ambling lost, afraid he’d be struck by a car on the mindless spaghetti of streets entangling the Lower McKinney area.
I think I might have ghasped, “No Effing Way!” Or something along these lines of disbelief. Immediately, both of our sweatshop produced iPhones were produced from our own pockets and focusing on this wall.
For those that don’t know, the area I’m referring to (often shortened to LoMac) is one of the densest parts of DFW, maybe even Texas. At least in terms of collection of high-end condo high-rises. The actual population density is quite low considering. And of course it is. The area is dreadful. All “density” and zero urbanity. If I had any money tied up in the area I’d either be 1) getting it out as fast as possible or 2) pushing for a dramatic rethinking of the entire street network in the area.
The lack of urbanity is two-fold. Bad streets. Bad buildings. The bad buildings are a defensive and rational response to the bad streets producing these vertical cul-de-sacs where your only engagement with the street is when passing Mr. Churchill’s quotation pulling into your parking garage. Once again, what everybody else seems to get except for Dallas, is that the fixation on objects matters little rather than the interconnections and interrelationships between things. Actually, it matters a lot for all the wrong reasons.
And really, that was my basic premise during the panel. The conversation has to be far deeper and more complex than the things we touch and feel. We’re supply-siding our city and we don’t seem to understand how that’s wrong. How that produces nothing approaching the authenticity we yearn for. And we make excuses, “Dallas is glittery,” “Dallas is built for the car,” etc. If we just add a London Eye, London will grow out of it. Or a High Line and NYC will grow out of it. Or a Calatrava and highway burial and Boston will grow out of it.
But we have the equation backwards. It was the city, the invisible nature of it, the interconnections, that drives demand. That produces density via desirability and opportunity. This is where authenticity derives. And since we’re so sorely lacking that Dallas has no identity…yet. We don’t know where it will lead, but it is fundamental to city building. And until then, the statements to the contrary about Dallas’s perceived identity (it sparkles!) are completely null and void.
Once over beers and still flabbergasted, we asked “would it be funnier if this was unintentional and completely self-aware or snuck in by an embittered designer with a good taste in irony?” Neither of us has quite answered that question yet. What do you think?
The TCU football program has had some well–publicizedproblems lately. But here is some good news. In 1994, there weren’t a lot of openly gay athletes in either the collegiate or professional ranks–not a lot has changed that way on that front. But halfway through the football season that year, TCU linebacker Vincent Pryor decided to tell his teammates he’s gay. Not long after, he tied the school record for sacks in a single game. (You can read his entire story here.) Today Pryor will be given the Atticus Circle Award for, in the words of the Dallas Voice, “his courage to come out to his football team his senior year.”
Leap Day! I’m sure all of you will make the most of the extra 24 hours, much like Christopher Columbus did when he used his knowledge of this lunar curiosity to scam indigenous Americans out of their stuff.
I have very clear memories of my elementary school art teacher, Ms. Larson, not because she was wonderful and fostered a life-long love for tempera paint but because she took great delight in calling me “Elizabeth Two-by-four,” an annoying bastardization of my somewhat unusual middle name. Needless to say, I still hold a grudge and I can’t draw a decent stick person to save my life. However, I’m always open to throwing some paint around when it’s all in good fun and no one will heckle me (too much). Painting and Drinking, an event the lovely and talented Laura Kostelny pointed us to on Monday on the DHome blog, sounds like a blast. Mary Fadian, owner of Mary’s Finds, will lead the evening, and she’ll provide all the supplies you might need to make a piece of modern art you won’t be embarrassed to hang on your wall. Just show up with friends and booze.
Otherwise, you can join the folks at the Dallas Architecture Forum for a talk with Jason Roberts, founder of the Better Block Project, co-founder of Art Conspiracy and Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, and founder of the Oak Cliff Transit Authority. Zac did a Q&A with him back in 2009, in which Roberts already sounded like the Tasmanian devil of community organizing. Tonight he’ll talk mostly about Better Block, an intense urban design demonstration that builds out areas in need of redevelopment (Roberts explains it so much better here). And I know. I’m directing you the Magnolia Theatre, again. Sorry. But our own Peter Simek has called Roberts an effective urban advocate, and it’s worth your time to hear what he has to say.
A rendering of the Arts Center of North Texas. None of this will ever be built. No, I'm not sure why these people are giving a standing ovation to the trees. Maybe, like Mitt Romney, they're great admirers of proper arboreal height.
In another life I was editor of The Allen American, then a semiweekly covering that city north of Plano that some of you probably don’t even realize you’re buzzing through when speeding north up U.S. 75.  Among the first issues I covered during my time there was the planned creation of the Arts of Collin County performance hall, a four-city partnership that quickly became a three-city partnership when McKinney voters opted not to pony up the $19 million membership fee. Which is to say, the project was troubled from the start. Then a weakening economy slowed fundraising.
It’s been moribund for awhile now, but only this week have the the owner cities – Allen, Frisco, and Plano – decided it’s time to divvy up the corpse.
The project had donated land to build upon, and $57 million in bond commitments, plus another $10 million or so of funds raised. Yet the job couldn’t get done. If it didn’t happen after that much of the groundwork was laid, how long will it be before any of these cities will be interested in trying again?
And did they blow their big chance last year, when they decided to rebrand the effort and chose to call it “Arts Center of North Texas?” As one of our commenters suggested, in such a bastion of Republicanism, a name like “Ronald Reagan Center for Free Enterprise American Arts” might have saved the thing.
Erykah Badu was supposed to play Kuala Lumpur today. Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Folks in Malaysia don’t cotton to tattoos in general (Islam forbids them), and they especially don’t dig tattoos of the word “Allah,” which Badu has in this publicity photo. You can read more about the dust-up here.
My question: what about fake tattoos? Because, while Badu and I don’t hang out naked together as much as we used to, I’m pretty sure those aren’t real tats.
An atheist writer and a couple dozen Baptists walk into a bar.
Sounds like the beginning of a joke. And it just might be. The kind folks from Wilshire Baptist Church have invited Mike Mooney to come talk to them about why he is so awesome. That’s my description. They’ve titled the talk: “Religion and the Media: A Conversation with D Magazine‘s Mike Mooney.” And they’re meeting at the Corner Bar. Things get rolling around 7:30 tomorrow, by which time Mike will already be oiled, if I know him. The Baptists? Not sure.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this engagement is the email press release. It included a link to Mike’s vanity site, which I didn’t know existed. And now I have lost myself in that wily, beard-shrouded smile of his.
There’s a car dealership in Dallas that uses a 28-year-old novelty song about poltergeists as the basis for its radio jingle. I’ve been hearing it as I drive for years — the jingle, not the song — but the absurdity of this concept didn’t strike me until this week. Am I wrong to call it absurd? Is this really a bit of marketing genius?
Erykah Badu was supposed to play Kuala Lumpur today. Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Folks in Malaysia don’t cotton to tattoos in general (Islam forbids them), and they especially don’t dig tattoos of the word “Allah,” which Badu has in this publicity photo. You can read more about the dust-up here.
An atheist writer and a couple dozen Baptists walk into a bar.