Life In A Word

Terminal Trans-formation

In the United States, you have what are known as the Big Four airlines: American, Southwest, Delta, and United. According to Statistica, these carriers account for two-thirds of America’s commercial flights. Not so long ago, the Big Four were American, Eastern, Trans World (TWA), and United. Eastern folded its wings in 1991; TWA a decade later. But TWA left an iconic legacy structure behind. Welcome to JFK International’s Terminal 5.

JFK International Airport’s “Terminal 5”

If you’re flying to New York City, LaGuardia Airport is just a hop, skip, and a landing from Manhattan. For my money I prefer JFK International, ten miles to the south, if only for the chance to visit Terminal 5. “T5”, as it’s known today, embraces one of the most unique airport buildings in the world – the TWA Flight Center. We’re lucky it’s still standing.

Go back to the first photo of T5. Doesn’t it look like a giant, white B-2 Stealth Bomber draped over the rest of the building? That part of the structure – or the “head house” as it’s called – was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen as the TWA Flight Center. Would you have guessed it was constructed in the 1960s? I think it looks decidedly more modern.

You can tell how dramatic the interiors of the Flight Center are without even stepping inside. Those window walls at both ends are two stories tall. The soaring “bomber” thin-shell concrete roof is shouldered at its corners by massive Y-shaped piers, allowing for the uninterrupted gathering space within. The Flight Center was the first terminal to introduce concourses and jetways to airport design, allowing passengers to board an airplane without having to drop down to ground level first.

Washington D.C.’s Dulles International Airport

Saarinen’s most famous designs feature similar swoops and curves. He gave the main terminal at Dulles International Airport the same look. He served on the advisory board for the design of the Opera House in Sydney, Australia. But his best-known work towers over St. Louis (coincidentally, TWA’s headquarters city): the Gateway Arch. Sadly, Saarinen saw none of these structures to completion, passing away in 1961 at the age of 51.

So if TWA is long gone, why is the Flight Center still around? Because it’s been transformed into a wholly different animal. Yes, you’ll find the typical mix of concourses, gates, and restaurants you see at most airports – the so-called “T5” aspect of the building. But the Flight Center itself – the head-house – has been converted into a kitschy hotel, with hundreds of rooms, a central lounge between the window walls, and a cocktail bar inside a restored Lockheed Constellation airliner. Brass light fixtures, rotary phones, and bright red carpet evoke the heyday of TWA. They’ve even retained the mechanical split-flap display board used to advertise arriving and departing flights.

Architecture is an important part of a culture, a museum of pieces placed here and there in the landscape. Preserving those pieces takes time, money, and sometimes, the gamble to repurpose. The TWA Flight Center may now be referred to as the TWA Hotel, but it’ll always be Eero Saarinen’s masterpiece.

Now for the latest on LEGO Fallingwater…

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LEGO Fallingwater – Update #5 (Read how this project got started in Perfect Harmony)

Today we spent landscaping “outdoors” around the foundation of the house. 40 pages (or 44%, or 136 minutes) into the build, this is what we have:

The fourteen trees on the Fallingwater model property are each nothing more than one small green LEGO cube snapped on top of another one. Compare this basic look to LEGO’s more recent take on growees, as in blogger Andrew’s View of the Week’s LEGO Flower. Slightly more realistic, wouldn’t you say?

At least we’re seeing a portion of the house itself begin to emerge. We’ve built a bridge over the stream (back right), and we’re starting construction on one wing of the house – the piece you see in front of the model.

Tune in next Thursday as construction continues! Now for another nod to Frank Lloyd Wright…

R. W. Lindholm Oil Company Service Station

No commission is to big or too small for an architect, which is why Wright put his signature on a gas station, very close to the time he was designing Fallingwater.

The Lindholm Service Station was part of Wright’s vision of Broadacre City, a utopian community planned for a four-square-mile property in Cloquet, MN. The Service Station fueled automobiles, yes, but also encouraged residents to gather in its upper space for what Wright envisioned as “… neighborhood distribution center, meeting place, restaurant… or whatever else is needed.” The cantilevered copper roof and band of glass windows is vintage Wright. The angular end of the roof canopy points to the St. Louis River as a symbolic nod to river transport.

The Lindholm Service Station is the only part of Broadacre City ever constructed, is included on the National Register of Historic Places, and is open to the public… to fill up your car, of course.

Some content sourced from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Wings and Prayers

One of the must-sees on a visit to Colorado Springs is the campus of the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). Besides a training ground for our future servicemen and women, the Academy hosts a high school, an airfield, two golf courses, and a cohesive campus of modernist buildings spread across 18,500 acres of the Rocky Mountain Front Range. But one structure stands prouder and taller than anything else on the property. Welcome to the USAFA Cadet Chapel.

If you’re following my blog posts on architecture (as I complete my LEGO Fallingwater model), you’ll recall Thorncrown Chapel from a few weeks back. The USAFA Cadet Chapel is a much bolder animal, dominating the academy campus skyline and easy to see from miles around. Instead of Thorncrown’s wood and glass, the Cadet Chapel boasts an impressive open structural steel frame, married with tall triangular stained glass windows. The main sanctuary is big enough to seat 1,200 (or about 25% of the USAFA student body); more like a church than a chapel. Frankly, the only thing the Cadet Chapel has in common with Thorncrown is its design inspiration: France’s Sainte-Chapelle.

The distinctive feature of the USAFA Cadet Chapel is its seventeen spires, marching from one end of the building to the other. The bold design, by architect Walter Netsche, took a little getting used to when the doors opened in 1962. Visitors described the structure as a giant accordion made of triangles. I describe it, more fittingly, as a series of fighter jets standing on their tails.

If you haven’t visited the Cadet Chapel you probably don’t know its biggest secret. It’s a chapel for all faiths. The main sanctuary is just the top floor of a multi-level structure. Hidden below, you’ll find individual chapels for Catholics (500 seats), Jews (100 seats), Muslims, and Buddhists. You’ll even find two “all-faiths rooms” and an outdoor area for “Earth-Centered Spirituality” (reserved for you Pagans and Druids). It’s safe to say your acceptance into the Academy has nothing to do with who or how you choose to worship.

The Cadet Chapel is a structural marvel, assembled from precisely one hundred prefabricated tetrahedral panels. Over the years its popularity has grown to where it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2004. That’s the good news. Now for the bad. The original design called for a series of gutters to transfer water away from the building, instead of streaming directly down its panels. But the gutters were scrapped due to budget constraints…

Mistake.

Sixty years of caulking and recaulking leaks finally forced the Academy to close the chapel for remodeling in 2019. Now for the really bad news… they’re still not finished with the repairs. In fact, you won’t be able to walk through the doors for another four years. What’s taking so long? Adding all those gutters, the ones that were supposed to be there in the first place.

One more bit of bad news (the fighter jets are really nosediving). Getting construction workers to the tops of the chapel spires meant building an entire hangar-like structure around the chapel. No joke – they put the whole building in a box. In other words, not only can you not walk through the doors, you can’t even see the Cadet Chapel today. Trust me, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Mark your calendar for 2027, because you really need to see the USAFA Cadet Chapel. It’s the only place I know where a (jet) wing and a prayer can be found in the same place.

Now for the latest on LEGO Fallingwater…

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LEGO Fallingwater – Update #4 (Read how this project got started in Perfect Harmony)

I’m starting to wish I’d built Fallingwater before the LEGO Grand Piano, so you’d see me taking on a greater challenge versus the other way around. 30 pages (or 33%, or 118 minutes) into the build, this is what we have:

Pretty much the same as last week. We added some landscape to the left side (the green/brown pieces), more landscape along the back, and we raised the foundation a little higher up off the water. We have yet to see any of the distinctive house itself. Not so adventurous.

What IS adventurous is sifting through 800 tiny pieces. There’s no logic in how they were bagged (thanks, LEGO!) so I end up just spilling everything out onto the desk, searching for a lot of minutes followed by building for a few minutes. Tedious? Heck no, this is a blast. If “tedious” entered my brain I’d have no business building LEGO models.

LEGO Gamble House by Grant W. Scholbrock

Props to my college buddy Bruce for sharing this photo, an example of a custom LEGO build… and one you can’t buy. It belongs in a museum if you ask me. There are pedestrian model builders (yours truly) and then there are professionals. Way to go, Grant!

Tune in next Thursday as construction continues! Now for another nod to Frank Lloyd Wright…

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

I’m not a big fan of museums. Maybe that’s because, as Frank Lloyd Wright said, a lot of them look like “Protestant barns”. No wonder New York City’s Guggenheim Museum is radically different. When Wright set out to design it in 1943 he vowed to “make the building and the paintings a symphony such as never existed before in the World of Art”.

I can’t describe “The Goog” any better than the website of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Their words: “… a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack that grows continuously wider as it spirals upwards towards a glass ceiling.” In other words, you the visitor climb in circles ever-ascending, enjoying the art as you go. The Guggenheim was the first museum design where the “physical home” played an important role in the experience of the art itself. If you’ve ever been to a museum that deserves a similar description, you have the Guggenheim to thank.

In closing I ask, is the Goog significant enough to earn a spot in the LEGO Architecture series of models? Why yes, it is!

Some content sourced from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

This Gamble Pays Off

In the movie Back to the Future, there’s a memorable scene shortly after Marty McFly time-travels back to 1950s California. Marty looks up Doc Brown in the phone book and heads over to his house. Doc doesn’t recognize Marty when he opens the door but he drags him inside anyway. The scene is memorable because Doc’s house (the exterior, at least) is recognizable to any student of American architecture. Welcome to Pasadena’s Gamble House.

Maybe you guessed this Gamble wasn’t won in a wager (although it would’ve been a handsome payoff!) Rather, it was built for a member of the (Proctor &) Gamble family who liked the look of his next-door neighbor’s place. That house, and many others on the same street, was designed by sibling architects (Charles) Greene and (Henry) Greene. The Gamble House is perhaps their most famous design.

The Greene brothers, who studied architecture at MIT, made a significant stop on their journey to the West Coast. They spent time at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. While there, they picked up design influences from the temple look of the Japanese pavilion (wood construction, tiled roofs, open verandas).

The Greene and Greene “ultimate bungalow” look, with its liberal use of dark wood slats and panels, became known as the Craftsman style of architecture. This label was all the more fitting because the Greene brothers also studied furniture design, and incorporated many custom pieces into their houses. Even more impressive, the finished look relies on elegant leather straps and wooden pegs as fasteners; not a nail or screw in sight.

The Gamble House is 6,000 square feet of indoor/outdoor living, in concert with California’s mild temperatures. You can tour the house courtesy of the USC School of Architecture students who get to live there every school year (luckies!) A separate tour walks you through the neighborhood to see other Greene and Greene designs. But the Gamble remains their masterpiece. And if you ever see this inviting residence, you may wish you owned a time-traveling DeLorean to take you back to its heyday in the early 1900s.

Now for the latest on LEGO Fallingwater…

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LEGO Fallingwater – Update #3 (Read how this project got started in Perfect Harmony)

I find it funny how this Fallingwater model is “rising” off of its foundation at the same time the water below is “falling”. It’s like I’m going in opposite directions at the same time. 20 pages (or 22%, or 83 minutes) into the build, this is what we have.

As you can see, the stream is now “built” from the front of the house all the way to the back, with the modest waterfall front and center. We also have our first piece of “landscape”, that dark green strip you see on the left. Otherwise, we’re still at the foundation level. I expect the house to rise dramatically in the next few chapters of the build.

Here’s something unnerving about this model. You don’t really understand what you’re building as you go. You’re putting together very small pieces which look like, well, LEGO blocks, until you stand back and take the whole model in. For this reason, you have to build very, very carefully. I still got the location of a few pieces wrong and had to utilize my handy-dandy wrench to yank them out. It’s like pulling teeth.

Tune in next Thursday as construction continues! Now for another nod to Frank Lloyd Wright…

Pettit Memorial Chapel

Over five hundred structures were built from the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, but only one of those five hundred is in a cemetery. That would be the Pettit Chapel in Belvidere, Illinois. Dr. Pettit was a beloved physician of his time, and his sudden passing prompted his wife to hire Wright to design a graveside chapel as a memorial to the man.

The design of the “petite” Pettit is very much in line with Wright’s signature Prairie Style. The low roof lines, broad eaves, and high horizontal bands of glass are typical. Wright used the shape of a cruciform – common in medieval cathedrals – to house the smallest of sanctuaries, as well as two open-air porches and a central fireplace. He then added storage, restrooms, and a furnace so the chapel could be used for public functions.

The Pettit Chapel has survived since its construction in 1906, thanks to restorations in 1977 and 2003. The chapel is open to the public, and, like many structures designed by Wright, included on America’s National Register of Historic Places.

Some content sourced from The Museum of Lost Things website article, “The Real ‘Back to the Future’ House”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Get Your Feet Wet!

I love urban plazas where water jets through an array of holes at ground level, creating fountains and arcs at random. Watching kids run and play in the midst of these unpredictable showers brings a smile. It’s also a creative way to cool off. Down in Texas, where it always seems to be hot, they’ve created an entire garden of water, where you can get your feet wet in all sorts of ways. Welcome to Fort Worth’s Water Gardens.

Maybe you don’t think of an outdoor venue as “architecture” but the fact is you don’t need walls and a ceiling to define space. The Water Gardens are a perfect example. This city block oasis pops up (er, down), unexpectedly as you pass through the urban grid of Fort Worth. Most of the park is hidden below street level but you can’t miss the rising mist and symphony of moving water. It’s a celebration of sorts, urging you to join in on the fun. The few photos I share here don’t begin to do it justice.

The Water Gardens challenge my logical brain because there’s no rhyme or reason to their haphazard design. Maybe that’s the point. Wander, gaze, and “soak in” their five acres. The Gardens are a multi-faceted experience of water. Phillip Johnson (one of America’s foremost architects), and John Burgee (a graduate of my own university) designed the Water Gardens to include “… pathways, wayside stops, events, and hideaways to draw out the experience, to convey more of the sense of a Central Park… than its limited acreage would’ve suggested possible.” That may be saying a lot about a little, but consider the Gardens’ offerings:

The “Quiet Pool” sits at the base of twenty-foot walls. Water descends almost silently down the stone from a trough above. Deep in the Gardens by the pool itself, you’re so far below ground level it’s as if the city has somehow been relocated far, far away.

The “Aerated Pool” is a nod to the water jets I mentioned above. Forty nozzles create an “orchard” of water in this smaller pool, the tops of the “trees” reaching back to the ground level of the city above.

The “Mountain” is a series of stepped concrete terraces, descending to a corner of the park removed from the water elements. Sitting on the Mountain is almost like being blindfolded. You can hear the rush of the Water Gardens nearby; you just can’t see them.

The “Active Pool” is the largest and most distinctive feature of the Water Gardens, literally a canyon through which the water streams and falls, terminating in a pool thirty-eight feet below the ground. A series of open steps dares you to descend through the water from top to bottom (check out this video for a sense of the experience). The Active Pool gained notoriety in the final scene of the movie Logan’s Run, as the inhabitants of the dystopian city climb into the outdoors for the very first time.

The major elements of the Water Gardens are tied together by a central plaza, where you can experience everything from one location. But to do so would betray the Gardens’ intent. They’re meant to be a moving experience, much as the water itself rushes, mists, and pools throughout.

Architecture is structured, while landscape is unstructured. Blend the two and the result can be unlike anything you’ve seen before. The Water Gardens beckon you to escape, to wander, to contemplate, and most importantly, to get your feet wet. Will you accept their invitation?

Now for the latest on LEGO Fallingwater…

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LEGO Fallingwater – Update #2 (Read how this project started in Perfect Harmony)

The instruction manual for LEGO Fallingwater includes about ninety pages for the assembly, so I figured I’d divide the build into nine equal parts. In the spirit of today’s topic, I proceeded to “dive in”.

Heaven help me.

You see, the 3,000+ pieces of the LEGO Grand Piano were separated into twenty-one numbered bags. Build one bag at a time – easy-peasy. On the other hand, the 800+ pieces of the LEGO Fallingwater model are separated arbitrarily into nine bags, with no indication of what piece is where. It’s like opening a jigsaw puzzle and realizing every piece looks almost exactly the same.

This scene is even scarier when you click to zoom in…

I took a photo of my desk so you could see how much chaos I created on my first day. Did I open all nine bags in search of pieces? Yes, I did. Did I consider just dumping all of the pieces into a big pile so I could search in one place? Yes (but I was afraid there was good reason they’re separated into nine bags). Did I build part of the model wrong and have to backtrack? Absolutely (and thank goodness for that little orange wrench you see next to the scissors. It came with the LEGO Grand Piano and unsnaps pieces that are snapped together incorrectly).

Ten pages (or 11%, or 49 minutes) into the build, this is what we have. We’re looking at Fallingwater from the same angle as the photo above, only all we’ve got is the lowest perimeter foundation wall and a spill of waterfall and creek emerging from the front corner. Not very exciting. Tune in next Thursday as the construction continues. Now for another nod to Frank Lloyd Wright…

Romeo and Juliet Windmill

For all of his famous residential and commercial projects, Frank Lloyd Wright had plenty of lesser-known designs, such as the Romeo and Juliet Windmill in Wyoming, WI. The tower was commissioned by Wright’s aunts, to pump water to a nearby school where they taught. You might describe its shingle-clad look as quaint but in fact, the design is intentional. The taller piece in the rear (“Romeo”) serves as structural support to counter the prevailing winds of the area. Romeo also contains the mechanics of the windmill and water pump. The cupola-topped octagonal piece in front (“Juliet”) is largely ornamental and softens the look of the tower when observed from further down the hillside. Neither part of the tower can really stand on its own, hence the name “Romeo and Juliet”.

Some content sourced from the website for Fort Worth Parks and Trails, and from Johnson/Burgee: Architecture, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Crowned Jewel

A little south and a little west of our downtown proper, you’ll find a wide street with stately old homes. The homes sit to the back of their properties, playing second fiddle to lines of majestic oak trees closer to the street. Overhead, the tree branches are densely intertwined, barely allowing the sun to peek through, creating a cozy, comforting canopy as you drive through. It’s a look that could’ve inspired the design of Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

When I gushed about Fallingwater in last week’s Perfect Harmony, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit some of my favorite American architecture as I share the adventure of my LEGO model build. Were it not for my architecture degree in college I probably wouldn’t be aware of these beautiful structures. Instead, all these years later I can recall my favorites from memory. They’re a diverse bunch but I think they exemplify almost-perfect spaces, thanks to the work of the architect behind the scenes.

Thorncrown Chapel is an appropriate choice to lead off my list. Just like Fallingwater, the chapel’s intent is to bring the outside in so that worship (or weddings, or any other celebration) feels as if you’re one with nature, yet with the conveniences and comfort of an enclosed space. Thorncrown was built in 1980 (by coincidence, my freshman year of college). Its architect, E. Fay Jones, turned a childhood interest in treehouses into a decorated career, including an apprenticeship under Frank Lloyd Wright. Fay Jones’ designs “focused primarily on the intimate rather than the grandiose“. Hence, chapels.

As a disciple of Wright (and the only one to win the American Institute of Architect’s [AIA] prestigious Gold Medal), it’s no surprise Fay Jones’ Thorncrown Chapel design is reminiscent of Wright’s Prairie School houses, with its broad overhanging eaves, horizontal lines, and deliberate integration with the landscape. Thorncrown contains 425 individual windows. Those with stained glass bring in so much colored light the chapel’s interior is often described as “jewel-like”.

As with Fallingwater, Thorncrown is constructed of organic materials, including Southern pine and flagstone from the surrounding area. The chapel seats 100 and is non-denominational, intended more for meditation for those who make the pilgrimage to Eureka Springs (in other words, go see it!) For all of the beautiful structures you’ll find in America over the last forty years, the AIA has given Thorncrown the distinction of “best American building constructed since 1980”.

Despite my longtime familiarity with Thorncrown, I never thought to wonder how it got its name. Turns out, Thorncrown’s design was not only inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright but also by Sainte-Chapelle, the Gothic church in Paris, France. And at some point in its history, Sainte-Chapelle supposedly housed the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ.

If your wanderings ever bring you to the northwest corner of Arkansas, take time to visit this crowned jewel of a chapel. Whether it strikes you as a treehouse or a miniature cathedral, being in church will never feel so comforting and cozy.

Now then, let’s turn our attention to (LEGO) Fallingwater, shall we?

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Fallingwater – Update #1

As with the LEGO Grand Piano, the first step in the build is to simply open the box and assess the contents. Here’s what is immediately apparent about the LEGO Fallingwater model:

The finished product will look much more like LEGO than the Grand Piano looks like a miniature piano. I can’t pinpoint the date LEGO first produced its Fallingwater model but it must’ve been years before the Grand Piano, with pieces more in line with basic LEGO blocks. I mean, check out the photo below. Would you believe this inventory of boring little pieces comes together as a house over a waterfall?
The Fallingwater model will be completed much faster than the Grand Piano. The design is intricate, yes, and we’re still talking about thousands of pieces, but the instruction manual hints at a much easier assembly. I won’t have those heartstopping moments like I did with the Piano, where I realized I’d built a section backwards. (Then again, my LEGO-building confidence may be getting the best of me.)
The Piano was interesting to look at even as it was coming together. Fallingwater… not so much. Under construction it’ll look like haphazard piles of LEGO bricks. Not exactly riveting to you the reader. Instead, as I did with the Piano and classical music, I’ll cover a few of Frank Lloyd Wright’s other designs, so you gain a better appreciation for the diversity of his life’s work.

Next week, “groundbreaking”!

Some content sourced from the official Thorncrown website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Perfect Harmony

In the toe of my wife’s Christmas stocking this year, I nestled a small gift to help her sleep. It’s a travel version of one of those sound machines, where you can dial up anything from rain to ocean waves to lull you off to Never Never Land. You can even mimic a waterfall, which would be my personal choice. After all, it’s the same sound the Kaufmann family enjoyed for years at their stunning retreat in the Pennsylvania forest, southeast of Pittsburgh. Seeing this famous house is an entry on my bucket list. Yes, one of these days I will make the trek to Fallingwater.

If you’re old enough to remember, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, you know the song’s about more than just apple trees and honey bees. It’s about “perfect harmony”, which is how anyone would describe Fallingwater. This beautiful structure is exactly as named: a house on top of a waterfall. It is considered one of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest achievements. The design is a melding of interior and exterior spaces, a principle borrowed from the Japanese. Fallingwater is a building, yes, but it’s more often described as “… harmony between man and nature”.

If you know anything about Wright, you know he was an eccentric architect. When the Kaufmann’s called to stop by his studio for a progress report, Wright hadn’t even begun the drawings. Yet by the time they arrived two hours later, Wright had completed the entire design. This production under pressure reminds me of author Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a novel written in just nine days and considered one of Bradbury’s greatest works.

The genius of Fallingwater’s design is in the details, or perhaps the lack of them. The house is constructed of reinforced concrete, stone, and glass. Its interior spaces are small and dark, encouraging more time spent outdoors. The sound of water can be heard everywhere, whether from the stream and waterfall below or from the natural spring allowed to drip along one of the hallways. Fallingwater’s distinctive cantilevered terraces are meant to resemble nearby rock formations, extending in every direction to the forested surroundings. Its dramatic perch on top of the waterfall is hidden from the approach to the house, lending to a sense of modesty.

Fallingwater brings the outdoors in wherever possible, and its best example may be a ledge-shaped rock in the living room, left undisturbed in its original location. The surrounding stone floor is waxed while the ledge is left plain and dull, creating the look of a rock protruding from a stream. A stair descends from the same room, several steps down to a platform whose function is to simply admire the stream. From photos, you’d believe Fallingwater was constructed entirely offsite and dropped gently within the forest by pushing aside a few tree branches.

Today, Fallingwater is a National Historic Landmark. You can tour the house and grounds with the purchase of a ticket at the visitor’s information website. If I were to visit, it’d be a ten-hour drive from where I live. That’s not going to happen anytime soon. Instead, I will build Fallingwater; literally. It is a model in the LEGO Architecture series and I am lucky to own a copy. As I tell my family, there are only two LEGO models I’ve ever wanted to build: the Grand Piano (completed last year and blogged about here), and Fallingwater. It’s a new year and it’s time to get started.

I’ll bring you along for the ride as my miniature Fallingwater takes shape in my home office. You can look for updates at the end of the next several posts. Eight hundred pieces from now, when all is said and done, I may borrow that little sleep aid I gave my wife for Christmas. After all, no house built on top of a waterfall would be complete without the sounds to go with it. Remember, we’re talking (er, singing) about perfect harmony here.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Selfish Shopping

The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is on full display this week. We’ve reached the critical timeframe – ten days out – where packages must be sent if they’re getting to destinations by Christmas. We’re making lists, not just for Santa but also for last-minute purchases. Now here’s the good news, weary shopper: no matter where you’re spending your holiday dollars, self-checkout is often an option.

If you’re like me, you beeline to self-checkout when you’re done shopping. You still have “the control”, as people like to say (who also prefer to drive instead of fly). With self-checkout you believe you can scan and bag faster than those who are paid to do so. Maybe, but consider the decisions you have to make in the process::

When do you choose self-checkout? Most of the time, (especially if the checker-bagger lines are long) but what if you have a lot of items? Self-checkout is awkward with a full shopping basket (ignore the stares). One time my wife and I snagged side-by-side registers, put the cart between them, and scanned away. Against the rules, you say? What rules? 🙂
Where do you stand in line? This is touchy territory, shopper. If you face the typical arrangement where one set of registers sits opposite the other, with enough open space in between, you can get separate lines for each set… which gets ugly when a person assumes he/she is entitled to the next available register on either side. Prepare for battle.
Which register do you choose? Murphy’s Law of Self-Checkout: One of the registers doesn’t work. You just assumed it was available because you couldn’t see the “out of order” screen until you were right in front of it. Now you have to turn around and reclaim your place in line. Again, ignore the stares.
When do you alert the self-checkout human assistant (oxymoron?) How many times have you gotten ahead of the system only to hear, “unexpected item in bagging area” or “please wait for assistance”? Here’s a tip: don’t wait for assistance. Most of the time the register is trying to catch up and just needs a little more time. Congrats, you’re faster than a computer.

Hard to believe, but retail self-checkout just celebrated forty years. We shoppers been doing what one writer describes as “quasi-paid unforced labor under surveillance” since the 1980s. I remember how I wasn’t thrilled about the concept when it debuted. Back then I thought, “Why do I have to do the checking out when someone else is paid to do it for me?”

I was even more annoyed when the airlines put up their “selfish” kiosks and dared travelers to check themselves in and print their own boarding passes. How quickly we adapt. Today I’ll choose self-checkout any time I’m given the option (even though surveys say 67% have a bad experience). In fact, we’ve been conditioned to self-checking out ever since the debut of the bank ATM in the late 60s. DIY checkout will only get more prevalent as companies reduce labor costs. One of these days I can picture a self-checkout Starbucks, with a fully mechanical barista standing by to whip up your skinny latte. Don’t bet against it.

Reasons we choose self-checkout (web.mit.edu)

Self-checkout is about to enter a new arena: clothing stores. But what about those security devices attached to the sleeves or pant legs? And how will they know if we slip an extra pair of shoes into the box? The bigger concern, however, may be image. How will Saks or Bloomingdales look with a bank of self-checkout registers next to their fancy cosmetic counters? Not the pretty picture of luxury shopping we’ve come to expect.

Image doesn’t matter to me so much, but my time does. If self-checkout returns a few minutes to my day, I say sign me up. But somewhere we’ve got to draw the line, people. At the rate we’re going, human interaction will soon be the exception, not the rule. It’s also not the direction a world in need of more face time should be heading.

With that, I put down the keyboard for the remainder of 2022. Remember, the holidays are anything but “selfish”, and everything about face time. Merry Christmas!

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Self-checkout annoys some customers…”

Bread, Salt, and Wine

As the endless loop of Christmas-cookie-cut Hallmark movies beckons yet again this year, the tried-and-true season classics struggle for air time and our time. If it weren’t for streaming you might not be able to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas anymore. You’ll have an easier time finding Miracle on 34th Street (but maybe not the 1947 original). On the other hand, you should find It’s A Wonderful Life right there in your online library or movie collection. You do have a copy of the greatest Christmas movie of all time, don’t you?

CNN Entertainment recently posted a list of “Hollywood’s stars’ favorite Christmas movies”, which is wrong on so many levels. I’m not saying an actor can’t be an authority on movies. Some of those interviewed have been in Christmas movies themselves. No, it’s more about the concept of ranking Christmas movies. It’s a futile attempt to place one above another, when the truth is each of us already has a favorite. I may be trying to sway you to my favorites today, but deep down I know you have yours and they’ll never change. Until a better one comes along, that is.

CNN’s list – or anyone’s for that matter – includes movies I struggle to associate with Christmas. Home Alone? The Holiday? You’ve Got Mail? Sure, each of these takes place during the season but they’re not really Christmas movies. Strike them from the list, please.

How about The Santa Clause, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (the 1964 stop-motion original), or How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Boris Karloff or Jim Carrey, you choose). Okay, now we’re starting to get somewhere. With each of these films you can at least claim a story about Christmas. They even include pretty good messages about the spirit of Christmas. Just not THE message.

A Charlie Brown Christmas still gets me at the end when the Peanuts gang sings, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”. The Polar Express asks us to just “Believe”, which I would if I could get past its creepy animation technique. And Love Actually is a collection of feel-good rom-com stories where viewers tend to choose just one as their favorite (again with the rankings). But none of these films dig much below the surface of the reason for the season.

[For the record, I’ve never been a fan of “A Christmas Story”. I think it’s a cult classic with a bizarre sense of humor. One or more of you will disagree, which means you’ll be happy to know about HBO Max’s follow-up film featuring Peter Billingsley (again) as very grown-up Ralphie.]

Okay, I’ve stalled long enough. I could take on another dozen so-called classics and explain why they don’t belong on any “best list” of the season’s movies. Instead, let’s cut to the chase and cover the three films whose stories illustrate the meaning of Christmas:

A Christmas Carol. The Charles Dickens classic has been recreated on film more times than I can count (and most versions are pretty good) but it’s hard to top the 1938 original. Maybe it’s because Dickens’ ghosts really scared me the first time I saw them (even in black-and-white). More likely it’s because Reginald Owen so perfectly portrays the remarkable transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge from mean and miserly to giddy and grateful.

Miracle on 34th Street. Again we have several versions here, but none better than Edmund Gwenn’s turn as Kris Kringle in the 1937 original (for which he won an Academy Award). Also, I’ll watch any movie with the lovely Maureen O’Hara, and Natalie Wood is adorable as sweet, innocent Susan Walker. But above all, “Miracle…” is about believing. C’mon, you remember the scene… all those bags of letters to Santa being dragged into the courtroom…

It’s A Wonderful Life… is, simply put, in a Christmas class all by itself. When critics describe this film as, “The holiday classic to define all holiday classics…”, you know you’ve got something special. If you’ve never seen It’s A Wonderful Life, kindly put down your electronic device and spend the next two hours with George Bailey in his little town of Bedford Falls. Talk about the meaning of Christmas. I won’t give it away, but the final scene where Mary drags George down the stairs to see “the miracle” is the message of the entire movie.

Maybe you don’t agree with my top Christmas movies (comments, please!), but you should at least admit to an underlying concern. All three of my choices were produced over fifty years ago. Fifty years! Am I suggesting there hasn’t been a more meaningful Christmas movie made in the last half-century? YES, I AM! Seriously, Hollywood, you can do a whole lot better than Elf.

If you’ve spent any time watching the Hallmark Channel this season (and… sigh… a ranking of those Christmas movies can be found here), you owe it to yourself to also watch at least one of the three movies I highlight above. Hopefully you’re watching them again, not for the first time. After all, as we learn in It’s A Wonderful Life, there’s much more to bread, salt, and wine than just the title of a blog post.

Some content sourced from the CNN Entertainment article, “Tom Hanks and more stars share their favorite Christmas movies”, and IMDb, the Internet Movie Database.

Doorstop Topper

The word nerd in me thinks it’s cool when one can be modified to make four others simply by changing the same vowel. Batter will be in abundance the next several weeks with all of the baking. The holidays are always better when shared with others. Colorado’s bitter cold winters are a thing of our past now that we’ve moved to the South. The chaos of the holiday season doesn’t really “bott_er” me (okay, that one’s reaching). But finally, we have butter. Ah, there’s nothing better than (or bitter about) butter, is there?

The topic of butter is brought to you today by an utterly ridiculous here-today-gone-tomorrow suggestion to make your holiday hosting more glam than your neighbor’s: butter boards. When I saw this picture I didn’t even understand what I was looking at. Even more insulting to this word nerd: the opinion piece I found describes a butter board as “charcuterie”. No, it’s not. Charcuterie is meats, not dairy. This unappetizing appetizer is nothing but butter, spread on a board, with toppings designed to take your attention away from the fact that it’s, well, butter on a board. I mean, if you’re gonna do faux-fancy at least go with peanut butter on a board, right?

Butter boards are an insult to butter. I think we can all agree, butter stands alone. You don’t need nuts or roasted garlic or dried fruit to ~~hide~~ dress it up. As long as your butter comes from fresh, quality ingredients, it makes anything it pairs with better. Except a board.

Can you tell I’m “bott_ered” by butter boards? It’s because my wife and I take our butter so seriously. Ever since a trip to Ireland, we learned the best butter is not only about quality, but quantity. At dinner in a quaint hotel in the Connemara region north of Galway, the waiter brought us a big serving of bread with an even bigger serving of butter. Seriously, the butter was more “brick” than “stick” (and certainly not “pat”). Ever since, our go-to butter is a brick. It also makes a great doorstop straight from the freezer.

Our butter dish is even designed for a brick, see? A stick would be lost in this Irish pottery; a pat even more so.

Speaking of butter pats, I must make mention of the device in the photo below. I wrote a whole post about it once called Sentimental Utensil. Who knew this petit guillotine was a timesaver to make butter pats? It showed up mysteriously in one of our kitchen drawers one day and I can only assume I inherited it from my mother. But inherited it shall stay. I can never get enough memories of my mother, as I alluded to in this paragraph from the past post:

And thinking about it even more, I can picture my mother using her butter cutter when I was a kid, leaving a perfect little pat beside the crescent roll that was positioned carefully on the bread plate beside each place setting at the dinner table. Because that was my mother. She was all about the dinner table. Everything had its place, even the pats of butter.

If you read the article on butter boards (please don’t) there are several dead giveaways on how forced this holiday trend feels. The first is right up there in the teaser subtitle: “Butter boards have gone viral…”. No, they haven’t, else this topic wouldn’t be worth ~~warning you~~ posting about. “… because of their novelty and shock value.” Their novelty? Shock value? Is one of your guests going to look at your butter board and say, “Well now, isn’t that novel?” And just what about a butter board causes “shock” other than the writer’s excuse to use (part of) the overused phrase “shock and awe”? It’s just butter, people.

The article should’ve gone with just the title so we could draw our own conclusions. Instead, you’ll find phrases like “… how fun the concept is…”, “… what’s fascinating about butter boards…”, and “… extremely versatile as an appetizer…”; none of which are true. The writing takes itself way too seriously and goes on way too long about something I will way never prepare. Unless it were frosting, of course. A “frosting board” would get my attention for sure. Put out a plate of cookies with a frosting board and I’m all hands.

But enough of the butter boards. You’d have to be blind as a bat to fall for this faux-fancy offering. I’ll bet you’ve already stopped reading. If you did make it this far, thanks for sparing a bit of your time. Comment so I know you’re not a bot.

Some content sourced from the Food Network article, “How to Make the Perfect Butter Board for the Holidays”.

Feast of Family

The turkey reminds me of my father-in-law, who always assumed the carving duties and insisted all dinners begin precisely at the top of the hour.
The dressing reminds me of my mother-in-law, who insists you taste-test as you go to make her meal-in-itself recipe just right.
The whipped cream reminds me of my son, who would top off his pie and then tip the can directly into his mouth for a second helping.
The crescent rolls remind me of my other son, who never lets the meal go forward without them.
The sweet potatoes (in scooped-out oranges) remind me of my daughter, whose version is best described as a work in progress.
The Waldorf salad reminds me of my dear mother, whose recipe – as I discovered years later – is notably different than the one served at the famous New York City hotel.
The mincemeat pie reminds me of my dear father, with whom I was the only family member to indulge in this carb-laden throwback treat.
… and finally, the pumpkin pie reminds me of my beautiful wife, who always doubles the spices to make the dessert (and everything else about the meal) twice as nice.

Today reminds me of the bounty of family and friends; a Thursday best spent with those you love (instead of reading blog posts).

Happy Thanksgiving!