Parking Meters in Navy Yard area

Walking down the street from the metro to my office building (my home away from home) I started thinking about Cool Hand Luke, a great movie if you haven't seen it, and recalled the opening scene where the main character is drunkenly cutting the heads off the parking meters. For this he was arrested and thus the rest of the movie was set in motion.

Well the parking meters along M Street have several beads of welding going down the stalk, preemptively preventing any Luke-like person from using one of those pipe cutters. At least it would make it difficult.

Fountainhead the Second Time

Just finished The Fountainhead. I think I understood it better this time than I did the last time I read it.

I don't know if I realized last time why Wynand crumpled in the end. This time I think I do realize, and that is, his product, his work, produced a 'thing,' the Banner, that could never do what he wanted. As soon as he tried to exert his will over it, it began to crumble. Forces moved in to destroy it.

There is a parallel to the act that Roark committed, he destroyed a work that did not conform to his will, the Cortlandt projects. And he was right in doing so.

Wynand should have closed his paper in New York, but he could not do so. He caved to the board. I would call it redeeming however that the Banner never carried another installment of 'One Small Voice.'

Ace of Spades

Allow me to admit something of which I am ashamed. I find interesting blogs to read because of those best of.. lists, or other avenues which also lead millions of readers to the same place. I am a lemming.

However, I really enjoyed this post from Ace of Spades, I think there are more than one contributor, and I have no idea who the contributor is, or about them. There were a few points that had me nodding my head especially the part about PETA.

One Liner Competition

He touched it and felt the power that tempted men. - Qasim Jafri

Was, I thought, one of the better ones in this contest-- at least, it was one that caused me to want to post it on my own blog, for all my readers. I didn't enter myself, which is, of course, why I didn't win.

However, I wax introspective today, because I was going to use the quote to create this entry and make it a short entry to boot. Then I saw the name of the writer and decided against it. Jason, Jim, Doug, Paul, or Frank would have never caused a 180 like that. What does that say about me?

Rand on Love

“Surely you’ve seen through that particular stupidity. I mean the one that claims the pig is the symbol of love for humanity–the creature that accepts anything. As a matter of fact, the person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him.”

“You mean the person who says that there’s some good in the worst of us?”

“I mean the person who has the filthy insolence to claim that he loves equally the man who made that statue of you and the man who makes a Mickey Mouse balloon to sell on the street corners. I mean the person who loves the men who prefer the Mickey Mouse to your statue–and there are many of that kind. I mean the person who loves Joan of Arc and the salesgirls in dress shops on Broadway–with equal fervor. I mean the person who loves your beauty and the women he sees in a subway–the kind that can’t cross their knees and show flesh hanging publicly over their garters–with the same sense of exaltation. I mean the perosn who loves the clean, steady, unfrightened eyes of a man looking through a telescope and the white stare of an imbecile–equally. I mean quite a large, generous, magnanimous company. Is it you who hate mankind, Mrs. Keating?”

“You’re saying all the things that–since I can remember–since I began to see and think–have been…” She stopped.

“Have been torturing you. Of course. One can’t love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name. It’s one or the other. One doesn’t love God and sacrilege impartially. Except when one doesn’t know that sacrilege has been committed. Because one doesn’t know God.”

“What will you say if I give you the answer people usually give me–that love is forgiveness?”

“I’ll say it’s an indecency of which youre not capable–even though you think you’re an expert in such matters.”

“Or that love is pity.”

“Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting–even as a joke.”

“What’s your answer?”

“That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it–the total passion for the total height–you’re incapable of anything less.”

“A–you and I–know it?”

“It’s what we feel when we look at a thing like your statue. There’s no forgiveness in that, and no pity. And I’d want to kill the man who claims that there should be. But, you see, when he looks at your statue–he feels nothing. That–or a dog with a broken paw–it’s all the same to him. He even feels that he’s done something nobler by bangaging the dog’s paw than by looking at your statue. So if you seek a glimpse of greatness, if you want exaltation, if you ask for God and refuse to accept the washing of wounds as a substitute–you’re called a hater of humanity, Mrs. Keating, because you’ve committed the crime of knowing a love humanity has not learned to deserve.”

Anacostia Waterfront

Every day there are people in royal blue jackets and on the back and maybe on the pocket-front, is something that tells me these people are part of the Anacostia Capital Riverfront or something project. I tried to remember the exact name so I could look it up and maybe even link to it, but that is secondary.

Ever since reading The Life and Death of Great American Cities (or was the Death and Life) I've become an expert on urban planning and those people are a waste of space. I want to go up to each one of them when they order me to 'have a nice day' and tell them to take their nice day get a real job.

The same goes for the rent-a-cops that 'patrol' the new DOT buildings on M Street.

Also I was just reading overheard in New York, so this post probably comes across a little more snotty than usual.

Jealous Again

Another blog of which I am jealous, only for the reason of its design, and use of real world materials to create posts and such.
http://www.designspongeonline.com/

I assume the blog itself is also interesting.

Roark

Still reading The Fountainhead, even though I feel I should not be. In one way, I'm glad to be reading it, because I'm a different person now than I was the first time I read it. I'm paying more attention to the struggles that Roark is experiencing. I'm paying more attention to the language Rand uses to describe his struggles.

Right now I'm at the part in the book where he's done plans for the Manhattan Bank. They're telling him they'll accept the plans, with just a few changes. Previously, Roark was in his office, doing nothing but waiting for the phone to ring, or a letter to drop through the mail slot. The only thing he had left was this building.

Now that I've entered the work force and become an office drone, and read a number of books on how to get along with people, how to speedread people, how to understand others, how to succeed in life, it must be sinking in slowly but surely. I'm not sure I like this process, any more than I like the process I underwent on my mission. I was a different person at the end of my mission, and while it was a good learning experience, I had become someone I did not like.

Now, the person I am, views Roark as an oddball, and I pick up on what the other people around him are saying. I pick up on what Keating is doing, and what he's saying to Roark. I pick up on what Keating's mother is saying to Keating. I pick up on what Francon is doing with his firm. I pick up on the way the youths feel as they drive past the Booby House on their way to fun and escape.

Roark is too much like the part of me that was raised away from normal people, and never learned how to be normal. I'm tired of being different, and I don't even have the excuse he has, that he has a vision, a belief in something. Without that, there's nothing to keep me from slipping into normalcy, nothing to keep me from playing the game.

However, I'm reminded of a movie called Cool Hand Luke where that character is driven, not by any vision or ideal, but simply by what he is. It got him killed, but that's because society could not stomach what he was.

Stalker

Since it's my birthday, I treated myself this morning.

There's a gallery, between L'Enfant Plaza and Navy Yard, which contains a single exhibit, and a single piece in that exhibit. It appears between 7:30 and 8:00 in the morning, and has long flowing red hair.

I took the yellow line from Gallery Place and had to change trains at L'Enfant, to catch the green line to Navy Yard. I may have missed the next green line train. And then I saw her. I looked once, while rubbing my other eye, and then continued to read.

Telling

Let me tell you of my strange wrestle not to tell a woman I thought she was attractive. My impulse is to tell her, despite the fact she's unapproachable. At first I only felt impulse, but as I resisted, that impulse demanded explanation. The explanation was this: a woman does not want to hear she is beautiful from just anyone. Most of the time, the unexpected feedback is given by someone disinterested, and the rest of the time, this feedback is expected or hoped for.

In scenario, disinterested would not describe me.

Indented First Lines

As you can see from my post below, I am having a little trouble indenting the first line. For some reason blogger strips out the spaces, or even tabs, or even nbsp's. Yet another tiny thing to have to know/worry about when blogging.

Rand's Phrasing

I should include an example of what I mean by Ayn Rand's imagery and phrasing, and only in the first chapter!

Mrs. Keating was out on the porch. She was feeding a couple of canaries in a cage suspended over the railing. Her pudgy little hand stopped in mid-air when she saw him. She watched him with curiosity. She tried to pull her mouth into a proper expression of sympathy; she succeeded only in betraying that the process was an effort.
He was crossing the porch without noticing her. She stopped him.
"Mr. Roark!"
"Yes?"
"Mr. Roark, I'm so sorry about--" she hesitated demurely "--about what happened this morning."
"What?" he asked.
"Your being expelled from the Institute. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I only want you to know that I feel for you."
He stood looking at her. She knew that he did not see her. No, she thought, it was not that exactly. He always looked straight at people and his damnable eyes never missed a thing, it was only that he made people feel as if they did not exist. He just stood looking. He would not answer.
"But what I say," she continued, "is that if one suffers in this world, it's on account of error. Of course, you'll have to give up the architect profession now, won't you? But then a young man can always earn a decent living clerking or selling or something."
He turned to go.
"Oh, Mr. Roark!" she called.

....editing a bit to get to the phrase I'm writing this all for- my hands are getting tired... Mrs. Keating has changed the subject to her son, Petey.

She stood drawn up. Her stout little body was corseted so tightly under the starched folds of her cotton dress that it seemed to squeeze the fat out to her wrists and ankles.

The Fountainhead

My wife just finished reading The Fountainhead yesterday. I'm proud of her. So this morning when I was on my way out the door, I didn't feel like getting into the laptop, so I grabbed said book for a re-read.

On the train, I kept spacing out, tripping really, on Rand's phrasing and imagery. So appropriate and so rich! I was also being sucked into the character of Roark. I can't help myself, every book I read I start to emulate or want to be like the hero, even if that hero is very different from me.

I should stop reading it. I'm liable to quit my job and do what I really want to do. Now if I could only figure out what that is... Another reason to stop reading is that the wife might see how quickly I tear through books in comparison to the way she tears through them (slowly). Additionally, I may want to discuss details that she doesn't remember, which really may as well be a totally different book. Plus too, this is her achievement reading the book, I should let her have it and enjoy it. Three reasons. Now I just have to find another reading book.

Flooring

Current reading: Black & Decker's book on home flooring.
I don't have it in front of me so I can't give you the exact title, but it's a pretty good overview of what it means to put down new flooring. Never mind the fact it was printed in the late 80's, and most of the technology and materials will probably be different, but I can take a principle and run with it.

The section on hardwood flooring was only a page. This means it should be super easy.

On to more interesting things: My new business card is in. For 'position title' I put 360. Yes for a serious work card that's what I put. Lot's of fun. At least until it gets me fired, I guess.