And now, back to our regularly scheduled program

Is there anything less interesting than catching a common cold? Well, I suppose yakking about it via social media....

Yeah, so I missed three solid days of writing, thanks to coughing, fatigue, runny nose, sore throat, yadda yadda yadda. Thankfully, Dayquil, Niquil, OJ, leftover prescription strength cough medicine and sleep seem to have done the trick, and I'm back in business today.

I'm not writing about Groundswell or the D.O.T. though; rather I've shifted gears toward something else, and will return in a day or two. Because in addition to finishing this thesis, I'm also taking a class, New York Arts and Urban Expression. I don't have time here to explain exactly what that class is, but what's important is the final paper for the class is due on November 13. Yes, there are three more classes after that—don't ask....

Like most classes in the Urban Studies masters program, this one has a professor who's eager to help us complete our thesis, so I've taken this opportunity to add a chapter to mine that I thought I might have to leave out: The world famous Five Pointz, located all of 15 minutes from Midtown Manhattan, in Long Island City. Here's a shot I got yesterday:

There's a shit ton of other pictures over at my Flickr set, including few pictures that aren't really focused on graffiti, per se. Like, for instance, this shot. That's because I'm going to focus a good deal on the relationship between this building's community, which will be scattered to the the four winds next fall when it's scheduled to be demolished, to the one affiliated with the Citigroup Building three blocks away. Basically, I have to somehow marry reporting and research on the "Institute of Higher Burnin'" as 5 Pointz known, to theory from the likes of Foucault, Derrida and Koolhaas.

From the latter, here's a quote from his tome, Delirious New York, which I highly recommend:

“Ferriss’ most important contribution to the theory of Manhattan is exactly the creation of an illuminated night inside a cosmic container, the murky Ferrissian Void: A pitch black architectural womb that gives birth to the consecutive stages of the Skyscraper in a sequence of sometimes over lapping pregnancies, and that promises ever new ones.” —P. 117

Should make for an interesting chapter.

-PV

P.S. I apologize for the blandness of the photos; I took them with my trashy little point-and-shoot instead of my SLR. Won't happen again!