I have been Miss Culture this past week with my visits to The Corcoran’s Modernism exhibit, the National Museum of Women in the Art’s Free-da Kahlo Day, and the Chuck Klosterman book reading at Wonderland last night. And I think I need more of this in my life, to be fed by art, architecture, and all things creative.

The Modernism exhibit was amazing to say the least. It had everything from teapots to chairs, original drawings to scale models, oil paintings to bronze sculptures. This was the era I should have lived in: it was about defining a utopia through art and architecture. One of my favorite pieces there was the Mies van der Rohe original drawing of the Ontwerp Friedrichstrasse. Architects don’t make beautiful drawings that generate emotions like that anymore; today’s version of it would be a 3d rendering from China with metal panels, developer-style, trying to imitate reality as best as possible. Within Modernism was one movement after another, or beside each other in different countries: precisionism, futurism, da-da, etc.;I was especially fascinated with the difference between the subjectivists and the constructivists, mostly because I’m still not quite sure what the difference is. Modernism seems to be where industrialism and existentialism collide. Houses were machines for living, yet art, architecture and literature could create whatever meaning one desired in their lives.

And then there was Frida. Wow. She was a woman who lived her life passionately, despite all obstacles. I highly recommend watching the movie before going to the exhibit. The exhibit had amazing photographs of her, she had this intensity in her eyes that blew me away. Love letters. Photographs of her body cast. I hope I find a passion that gives me that same kind of intensity one day.

And then last night I met Chuck Klosterman, the advanced guru of pop culture. I am not a follower of pop culture, but I got into him when the cover of his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs would catch my eye every morning in the hands of my fellow readers on the bus. So I picked up his new book at the Harvard bookstore during my Thanksgiving in Boston trip. And since then I’ve been addicted to his writing. I only know maybe 1% of the things he talks about in his books and during his reading, but the way he analyzes and dissects his topics is like a comedy show for me. Very different, very refreshing. And similar (but way more insightful) to the way I look at life. And the best end to the evening: after the reading my friend Kevin and I went to dinner down the street at the newest contributor to gentrification in Columbia Heights, and as we were sitting outside digesting our meal, we saw Chuck hailing a cab with his buddies so we ran down the street and yelled “Bye Chuck!” And as he elusively disappeared into the cab he said “Thanks for coming out!” And to top off my brush with pop culture’s most advanced guru, I watched the new Harry Potter movie last night. I’ve never read the books, nor watched the movies consecutively so I went in expecting to fall asleep (it was after all a midnight show) but surprisingly, I was able to follow the movie and be entertained by cool effects and a good story line.

And that my friend, was a lot of deep-linking, my new buzzword. (Last week’s was “Another one bites the dust.”)

This weekend I would like to do the National Portrait Gallery, as well as a day at the pool.

The list of the top 25 urban elements that make our cities around the world.

America would be a happier country if we had every Wednesday off to set off fireworks. It’s like you have two weekends every week. Monday becomes a Thursday and Tuesday becomes a Friday, which leaves only the best days of the week because everyone loves Thursdays, Fridays, and the weekend. So here’s to a two weekend week!

c/o Magnum Photos

To fellow bathroom designers: Please do not use light colored glossy tiles on the floor of bathrooms with floating partitions, as this material tends to show unseemly reflections from the stalls next door.

America’s answer to global warming.

That is the question my mind has been toying with after last night’s lecture–Would you rather help 50 people or 50 billion people?

Last night, I attended a lecture by Cameron Sinclair, the director of Architecture for Humanity. A man with a great sense of humor, this man is inspiring for his humility, his passion for architecture, and his dedication to humanity. Sure he lives off an annual salary of $12,000 but at only 33, he has done more for humanity than 100 architects combined will have by the time they die. At 23 he found his architecture career unfulfilling and took the bold step of contacting the UN because he wanted to build a refugee camp. Since then, for the last 10 years he has trudged along many setbacks to create an organization that now serves the lower 90% of the world population with the help of volunteer architects, and with the monetary recognition he’s received, created the Open Architecture Network which shares knowledge about humanitarian architecture. So while this guy is worrying about how to house people who have lost their homes from natural disasters or life disasters, and how to build schools for children who wouldn’t have an education otherwise, here I am figuring out how to get the most square footage possible out of a site for a luxury hotel and condo building so that people can eat their caviar, and worrying about whether the boy I went on a date with on Sunday is going to call. Now that’s a reality check. If only we could all learn to live this way, to find something we are so passionate about that we would give up life’s luxuries, which I am finding are actually quite unfulfilling.

Finally, the law takes into its own hands those hideous low-riding pants.  I wonder if they’ll target ladies exposing their thongs next.

Ever wondered why DVD cases are bigger than CD cases even though the actual product is the same? Read on.