Congratulations to our Canadian brothers and sisters on a great Winter Olympic ice hockey game and a famous victory. This game may become nearly as famous as when the Canadians defeated the USA team in Salt Lake City.
Ice hockey started anciently with groups of guys on ice hitting flat rocks back and forth with sticks. Over the ages, we build up around the game expensive infrastructure, all that money in salaries and betting, and all kinds of nationalistic baggage to hang over a simple sport. Then we cover it all in alcohol. We should not regard these as steps in the right direction.
I always preferred the elegance of the Winter Olympics to more the sweaty gladiator aspects of the Summer Games. Unforunately, winter Olympic games’ costs have skyrocketed rather out of control.
By February 2010, experts estimate the total cost of the Games, including all the infrastructure improvements for the region that occurred, at $6 billion, with $600 million spent on hosting the actual games. Price-Waterhouse projects benefits and revenues to the city and province in the range of $10 billion; an eport projects direct revenues in the range of $1 billion. This is a long way in the wrong direction from the guys having fun with sticks and stones on ice.
Xtreme sports have no place in Winter Olympic games. Therefore, that luge track on which athletes clutching sleds the size of cookie platters can travel 95 miles an hour still concerns me. We find Luge and Skeleton exciting enough without the extreme speeds, thank you very much.
I have compiled a list of The top seven medal-winning countries in the last four Olympiads,
ranked by all medals
1 Germany three times
United States once
2 Germany once
Norway once
USA twice
3 Canada twice
Norway once
Russia once
Austria all four Olympiads
Canada all four Olympiads
Finland 1998
France 2002
Germany all four Olympiads
Italy 2002
Russia all four Olympiads
Netherlands 2002
Norway all four Olympiads
South Korea 2010 – shape of things to come?
Sweden 2006
Switzerland 2002, 2006
United States all four Olympiads
The interesting emergence of South Korea aside, the Winter Olympic games remain the domain of North American and European countries with mounds of money to spend on such frivolity. This is also not quite a step in the right direction either.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
THE PROVO TEMPLE: GOOGIE, PAST POLITICS, AND THE FUTURE OF AN ARCHITECTURAL LANDMARK
ITEM CULLED FROM THE DAY'S NEWS HEADLINES
LDS Church isn't planning to renovate Provo Temple
preserved from Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700010478/No-plans-to-redo-Provo-LDS-temple.html
By Scott Taylor Deseret News
Published: Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 7:17 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — After Wednesday's announced face-lift to the Ogden Utah Temple, the expected questions regarding the Provo, Salt Lake and Jordan River temples were answered with a resounding "no current plans" by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Given their mirrored timelines of some four decades and near-identical designs, the Ogden and Provo temples have long been labeled "sister" temples.
Because of the Ogden-Provo parallelism, many reasons cited for upgrading the former temple would seemingly apply also to the latter — seismic concerns, dated exterior and interior designs, inefficient mechanical systems and out-of-date building materials built on old specs and technology.
One major difference, however, is the LDS Church matching a revitalized temple with a redeveloping downtown Ogden.
"You combine that with what was going on in Ogden, and I think the First Presidency felt this would be a wonderful thing to do for the church and for the Saints in Ogden as well as a wonderful thing to do for the city of Ogden," said Elder William R. Walker, a member of the Quorums of the Seventy and executive director of the church's Temple Department.
Still, people wonder if the Provo Temple is destined for Ogden-style massive makeover.
"I think it would be safe to say that that wouldn't even be considered until the Payson Temple (announced last month) is completed," Elder Walker said.
RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
“No current plans” means ”none of our business.”
The Salt Lake Church bureaucracy has plans afoot. You can rely on it. However, it is not quite ready to release them or do them just yet. If the Salt Lake City and County Building and the Utah State Capitol needed seismic upgrades, then the Salt Lake Temple needs a seismic upgrade, though probably on a lesser scale, since the temple has better-built features.
In the mid 1960s when the First Presidency discovered that church members performed a big majority of the Church’s total temple work in the Logan, Salt Lake City, and Manti, Utah temples (3 of 13 total), it commissioned Emil Fetzer to design temples for Ogden and Provo that could accommodate big crowds of people efficiently. Lots of people could get in, do the work, and get out without tripping over each other. And the Church could construct them -- how shall we say this diplomatically? -- on the cheap.
His design triumphed on both counts. The use of space in the Provo Temple should be a lesson to architects everywhere. The Provo Temple cost in the neighborhood of four million dollars to build, which even in the early 1970s was a reasonable neighborhood for a structure of that size and type.
Unfortunately, the public both Mormon and non-Mormon had problems with the style of both temples. Fetzer designed the temples in a time when liberals criticized the Church for its policy about not ordaining blacks – and to a lesser extent women – to the priesthood. Many considered the Church of Jesus an old-fashioned cult out-of-date and out-of-step with the times. So its new temple designs incorporated elements from the most futuristic architectural style available then. Thus architecturally, the church was – from a symbolic point of view – progressive. The styles available for Fetzer were Googie followed by Internationale Art Deco.
We can summarize the design problem of the Ogden and Provo Temples this way: the design combines googie and art deco architectural elements. Some elements of art deco still find public favor in certain places, but googie fell quite out of style. Having grown up with The Jetsons, I assumed that housing in the 21st century would resemble the Great Googie Symbol of the Age: The Space Needle. Instead, housing styles went backward in time, not forward.
I remember distinctly in the early 1970s, a person I knew publicly stated to me that the Provo Temple reminded him of an insurance company headquarters. For many people the big problem stylistically remains the second floor above ground level – Fetzer designed it to look as though it is smaller than the third floor. The outside walls of that floor consist of floor-to-ceiling, one-way mirrored glass. This is a good feature for the Provo Temple, because the temple was and is somewhat isolated from the city with fabulous views of the mountains and valleys. It worked out less successfully in Ogden, where the temple sat on busy Washington Avenue in the middle of downtown. The Ogden Temple view is less interesting, and the one-way glass reverses at night. Both temples have to employ a lot in the way of drapery.
From the point of view of past and current celestial room designs, the lack of windows in the Provo Temple Celestial Room constitutes another problem. The highest symbolic representation of the Celestial Kingdom seems a little dark in terms of natural light.
The Provo Temple’s economizing elements have worked out less successfully in the long view. It is now approaching its fortieth anniversary. It does look its age.
THE CALL TO ACTION FOR THE FUTURE OF THE PROVO TEMPLE
1. Add more and better protections from the downside of the gorgeous natural surrounding. If Ogden Temple needs a seismic upgrade, so does Provo – and even more so. The Provo Temple stands within a mile of the Wasatch earthquake fault. It also stands on an old flood plain fanning forth from Rock Canyon.
2. Replace the mechanical systems with energy-efficient equipment. Find ways to use less water, heat, air conditioning, and electrical power.
3. Add more and better insulation.
4. Make the interior furnishing more overtly googie, Danish modern, and art deco.
They do not embrace their heritage in 1960s googie, Danish mod, or art deco nearly enough.
5. Restore the escalators. The interior design is a model of efficiency and should be left alone as much as possible. The escalators were part of the building’s original efficiency features.
6. Replace the cast stone on the ground level and third level with some sort of granite exterior. If we compare-contrast the Provo Temple’s exterior walls with the exteriors of the Draper, Mount Timpanogos, and Oquirrh Mountain Temples’ exteriors, Provo’s comes out of the competition looking second rate. The purplish granite of the American Fork Temple looks especially elegant, and the brownish granite of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple looks especially unusual. If the Church can obtain granite facing from the same quarry that provided granite for the Salt Lake Temple and the Conference Center, that would be a triumphant improvement for the Ogden and Provo Temples as well.
7. As much as possible, save the floor-to-ceiling glass walls on the second level. Many find it one of the more spectacular features of the Provo Temple. It will require a better grade of twenty-first-century one-way glass. Certain one-way glasses now available turn opaque with a touch of a button. We might incorporate stained art glass into these walls as well.
8. Redesign the roof for better energy efficiency. It needs more of an incline to help with rain and melted snow run off. Some sort of skylight (as in the Draper Temple Celestial Room design) would add much to the Provo Celestial Room.
IN CONCLUSION THEN
The Salt Lake Church bureaucracy should leave the Provo Temple exterior design well enough alone. This will be the only International Art Deco / Googie design temple left on Earth. As such, it has historic elements to preserve – not destroy.
LDS Church isn't planning to renovate Provo Temple
preserved from Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700010478/No-plans-to-redo-Provo-LDS-temple.html
By Scott Taylor Deseret News
Published: Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 7:17 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — After Wednesday's announced face-lift to the Ogden Utah Temple, the expected questions regarding the Provo, Salt Lake and Jordan River temples were answered with a resounding "no current plans" by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Given their mirrored timelines of some four decades and near-identical designs, the Ogden and Provo temples have long been labeled "sister" temples.
Because of the Ogden-Provo parallelism, many reasons cited for upgrading the former temple would seemingly apply also to the latter — seismic concerns, dated exterior and interior designs, inefficient mechanical systems and out-of-date building materials built on old specs and technology.
One major difference, however, is the LDS Church matching a revitalized temple with a redeveloping downtown Ogden.
"You combine that with what was going on in Ogden, and I think the First Presidency felt this would be a wonderful thing to do for the church and for the Saints in Ogden as well as a wonderful thing to do for the city of Ogden," said Elder William R. Walker, a member of the Quorums of the Seventy and executive director of the church's Temple Department.
Still, people wonder if the Provo Temple is destined for Ogden-style massive makeover.
"I think it would be safe to say that that wouldn't even be considered until the Payson Temple (announced last month) is completed," Elder Walker said.
RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
“No current plans” means ”none of our business.”
The Salt Lake Church bureaucracy has plans afoot. You can rely on it. However, it is not quite ready to release them or do them just yet. If the Salt Lake City and County Building and the Utah State Capitol needed seismic upgrades, then the Salt Lake Temple needs a seismic upgrade, though probably on a lesser scale, since the temple has better-built features.
In the mid 1960s when the First Presidency discovered that church members performed a big majority of the Church’s total temple work in the Logan, Salt Lake City, and Manti, Utah temples (3 of 13 total), it commissioned Emil Fetzer to design temples for Ogden and Provo that could accommodate big crowds of people efficiently. Lots of people could get in, do the work, and get out without tripping over each other. And the Church could construct them -- how shall we say this diplomatically? -- on the cheap.
His design triumphed on both counts. The use of space in the Provo Temple should be a lesson to architects everywhere. The Provo Temple cost in the neighborhood of four million dollars to build, which even in the early 1970s was a reasonable neighborhood for a structure of that size and type.
Unfortunately, the public both Mormon and non-Mormon had problems with the style of both temples. Fetzer designed the temples in a time when liberals criticized the Church for its policy about not ordaining blacks – and to a lesser extent women – to the priesthood. Many considered the Church of Jesus an old-fashioned cult out-of-date and out-of-step with the times. So its new temple designs incorporated elements from the most futuristic architectural style available then. Thus architecturally, the church was – from a symbolic point of view – progressive. The styles available for Fetzer were Googie followed by Internationale Art Deco.
We can summarize the design problem of the Ogden and Provo Temples this way: the design combines googie and art deco architectural elements. Some elements of art deco still find public favor in certain places, but googie fell quite out of style. Having grown up with The Jetsons, I assumed that housing in the 21st century would resemble the Great Googie Symbol of the Age: The Space Needle. Instead, housing styles went backward in time, not forward.
I remember distinctly in the early 1970s, a person I knew publicly stated to me that the Provo Temple reminded him of an insurance company headquarters. For many people the big problem stylistically remains the second floor above ground level – Fetzer designed it to look as though it is smaller than the third floor. The outside walls of that floor consist of floor-to-ceiling, one-way mirrored glass. This is a good feature for the Provo Temple, because the temple was and is somewhat isolated from the city with fabulous views of the mountains and valleys. It worked out less successfully in Ogden, where the temple sat on busy Washington Avenue in the middle of downtown. The Ogden Temple view is less interesting, and the one-way glass reverses at night. Both temples have to employ a lot in the way of drapery.
From the point of view of past and current celestial room designs, the lack of windows in the Provo Temple Celestial Room constitutes another problem. The highest symbolic representation of the Celestial Kingdom seems a little dark in terms of natural light.
The Provo Temple’s economizing elements have worked out less successfully in the long view. It is now approaching its fortieth anniversary. It does look its age.
THE CALL TO ACTION FOR THE FUTURE OF THE PROVO TEMPLE
1. Add more and better protections from the downside of the gorgeous natural surrounding. If Ogden Temple needs a seismic upgrade, so does Provo – and even more so. The Provo Temple stands within a mile of the Wasatch earthquake fault. It also stands on an old flood plain fanning forth from Rock Canyon.
2. Replace the mechanical systems with energy-efficient equipment. Find ways to use less water, heat, air conditioning, and electrical power.
3. Add more and better insulation.
4. Make the interior furnishing more overtly googie, Danish modern, and art deco.
They do not embrace their heritage in 1960s googie, Danish mod, or art deco nearly enough.
5. Restore the escalators. The interior design is a model of efficiency and should be left alone as much as possible. The escalators were part of the building’s original efficiency features.
6. Replace the cast stone on the ground level and third level with some sort of granite exterior. If we compare-contrast the Provo Temple’s exterior walls with the exteriors of the Draper, Mount Timpanogos, and Oquirrh Mountain Temples’ exteriors, Provo’s comes out of the competition looking second rate. The purplish granite of the American Fork Temple looks especially elegant, and the brownish granite of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple looks especially unusual. If the Church can obtain granite facing from the same quarry that provided granite for the Salt Lake Temple and the Conference Center, that would be a triumphant improvement for the Ogden and Provo Temples as well.
7. As much as possible, save the floor-to-ceiling glass walls on the second level. Many find it one of the more spectacular features of the Provo Temple. It will require a better grade of twenty-first-century one-way glass. Certain one-way glasses now available turn opaque with a touch of a button. We might incorporate stained art glass into these walls as well.
8. Redesign the roof for better energy efficiency. It needs more of an incline to help with rain and melted snow run off. Some sort of skylight (as in the Draper Temple Celestial Room design) would add much to the Provo Celestial Room.
IN CONCLUSION THEN
The Salt Lake Church bureaucracy should leave the Provo Temple exterior design well enough alone. This will be the only International Art Deco / Googie design temple left on Earth. As such, it has historic elements to preserve – not destroy.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
AVATAR and Hollywood Post-Feminist Doctrine
For the first time since 1943, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated ten films for the Best Picture Oscar. Only one of the five films nominated for best director will win the award:
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds (Can I write "Inglourious" in Blogspot [;^>) ?)
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (has to be the longest, most-pretentious nominee title since Doctor Strangelove)
Up in the Air
Dark Victory Gone with the Wind Goodbye, Mr. Chips Love Affair Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Ninotchka Of Mice and Men Stagecoach The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights all received nominations for best film of 1939. I do not think anyone will mistake 2009 for 1939.
AMPAS should have nominated ten films back in 1962. It nominated
David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia which won Best Picture of 1962
and
Mutiny on the Bounty
The Longest Day
The Music Man
To Kill a Mockingbird
In 1962, American producers also gave us
All Fall Down
Advise and Consent,
Bird Man of Alcatraz,
Cape Fear
Carnival of Souls
The Chapman Report
David and Lisa
Days of Wine and Roses
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Gay Purr-ee
Gigot
Gypsy
Hell Is for Heroes
Lolita
Lonely Are the Brave
Long Day's Journey Into Night
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Manchurian Candidate
The Miracle Worker
Requiem for a Heavyweight
Ride the High Country
The Road to Hong Kong
Sergeants 3
State Fair
Sweet Bird of Youth
Tender Is the Night
That Touch of Mink
The Trial
Two for the Seesaw
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
Zotz!
I do not believe anyone will confuse 2009 with 1962.
Thursday evening, I attended a six thirty p.m. showing of James Cameron’s Avatar in 3 Dimension. For the first time, I view a 3-D feature film. As a movie experience, it ranks with the times I viewed four other landmark technological films of blessed memory:
1963 How the West was Won Widescreen Cinerama stereophonic sound
(Viewed with my parents)
1967 The Sound of Music Widescreen Todd-AO stereophonic sound
(Viewed with my parents)
1977 Star Wars
eventually re-titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Dolby Surround Sound and special effects
(viewed with Randy Stokes)
1997 Titanic Special effects
(viewed with Richard Crookston)
In their ways, these films, plus Avatar felt like revelation.
If Avatar is any indication, the movies of the 21st Century will be very sensuous but hard on the eyes and the inner ear. 3-D certainly made the sets and alien forests come alive. Avatar contains much skin for a PG-13 film: Cameron computer generated a huge alien cast -- mostly nude and blue. 3-D enhanced them as well.
James Cameron does create great plots, but his dialog is first-year film-school stuff. He really should do what his stylistic influences from the classic age of movies -- Victor Fleming and David Lean -- did in the old days. They did not write their own movies: they hired either novelists (Noel Langley) or playwrights (Maxwell Anderson, Robert Bolt, Marc Connally, Sidney Howard) to write their screenplays.
Some complain that Avatar is anti religion. That complaint is silly. It is not often that we encounter a modern movie with both a Tree of Life and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in it. The film might be at most anti-organized religion, but it certainly has spiritual elements to it.
Some complain that the film is anti-American. The plot is not so much anti-American as it is delightfully anti-business, anti-military, anti-technology. It will dominate and win the technological Oscars: I predict it will win six or seven Oscars. However, Kathryn Bigelow will win best director for The Hurt Locker. A Bigelow win would be good drama. Bigelow is Cameron’s ex-wife and would become the first woman to win the award for best director.
Only four women have received nominations for best director since 1975. Before Lina Wertmuller’s landmark nomination for Seven Beauties, Leni Riefenstahl worked in Germany as a female film director. Had AMPAS awarded a best foreign film Oscar in the 1930s, she might have won best foreign film twice for Triumph of the Will and Olympiad.
Dorothy Arzner deserved at least one directorial nomination. Her best film of the 1930s certainly was better than some of the turkeys nominated for best director in the 1930s. Ida Lupino should have received an Emmy nomination for directing the “A is for Aardvark” episode of Bewitched in 1965 and an Oscar nomination for directing The Trouble with Angels in 1966.
If Ms Bigelow does not win, then AMPAS should award best director to Lee Daniels, only the second black man ever to receive a nomination for best director.
Hollywood has been in bed with big business too long to award an anti-big-business movie the award for best film. It will I bet award best film to the realistic dramatic anti Iraq War film The Hurt Locker.
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds (Can I write "Inglourious" in Blogspot [;^>) ?)
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (has to be the longest, most-pretentious nominee title since Doctor Strangelove)
Up in the Air
Dark Victory Gone with the Wind Goodbye, Mr. Chips Love Affair Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Ninotchka Of Mice and Men Stagecoach The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights all received nominations for best film of 1939. I do not think anyone will mistake 2009 for 1939.
AMPAS should have nominated ten films back in 1962. It nominated
David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia which won Best Picture of 1962
and
Mutiny on the Bounty
The Longest Day
The Music Man
To Kill a Mockingbird
In 1962, American producers also gave us
All Fall Down
Advise and Consent,
Bird Man of Alcatraz,
Cape Fear
Carnival of Souls
The Chapman Report
David and Lisa
Days of Wine and Roses
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Gay Purr-ee
Gigot
Gypsy
Hell Is for Heroes
Lolita
Lonely Are the Brave
Long Day's Journey Into Night
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Manchurian Candidate
The Miracle Worker
Requiem for a Heavyweight
Ride the High Country
The Road to Hong Kong
Sergeants 3
State Fair
Sweet Bird of Youth
Tender Is the Night
That Touch of Mink
The Trial
Two for the Seesaw
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
Zotz!
I do not believe anyone will confuse 2009 with 1962.
Thursday evening, I attended a six thirty p.m. showing of James Cameron’s Avatar in 3 Dimension. For the first time, I view a 3-D feature film. As a movie experience, it ranks with the times I viewed four other landmark technological films of blessed memory:
1963 How the West was Won Widescreen Cinerama stereophonic sound
(Viewed with my parents)
1967 The Sound of Music Widescreen Todd-AO stereophonic sound
(Viewed with my parents)
1977 Star Wars
eventually re-titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Dolby Surround Sound and special effects
(viewed with Randy Stokes)
1997 Titanic Special effects
(viewed with Richard Crookston)
In their ways, these films, plus Avatar felt like revelation.
If Avatar is any indication, the movies of the 21st Century will be very sensuous but hard on the eyes and the inner ear. 3-D certainly made the sets and alien forests come alive. Avatar contains much skin for a PG-13 film: Cameron computer generated a huge alien cast -- mostly nude and blue. 3-D enhanced them as well.
James Cameron does create great plots, but his dialog is first-year film-school stuff. He really should do what his stylistic influences from the classic age of movies -- Victor Fleming and David Lean -- did in the old days. They did not write their own movies: they hired either novelists (Noel Langley) or playwrights (Maxwell Anderson, Robert Bolt, Marc Connally, Sidney Howard) to write their screenplays.
Some complain that Avatar is anti religion. That complaint is silly. It is not often that we encounter a modern movie with both a Tree of Life and a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in it. The film might be at most anti-organized religion, but it certainly has spiritual elements to it.
Some complain that the film is anti-American. The plot is not so much anti-American as it is delightfully anti-business, anti-military, anti-technology. It will dominate and win the technological Oscars: I predict it will win six or seven Oscars. However, Kathryn Bigelow will win best director for The Hurt Locker. A Bigelow win would be good drama. Bigelow is Cameron’s ex-wife and would become the first woman to win the award for best director.
Only four women have received nominations for best director since 1975. Before Lina Wertmuller’s landmark nomination for Seven Beauties, Leni Riefenstahl worked in Germany as a female film director. Had AMPAS awarded a best foreign film Oscar in the 1930s, she might have won best foreign film twice for Triumph of the Will and Olympiad.
Dorothy Arzner deserved at least one directorial nomination. Her best film of the 1930s certainly was better than some of the turkeys nominated for best director in the 1930s. Ida Lupino should have received an Emmy nomination for directing the “A is for Aardvark” episode of Bewitched in 1965 and an Oscar nomination for directing The Trouble with Angels in 1966.
If Ms Bigelow does not win, then AMPAS should award best director to Lee Daniels, only the second black man ever to receive a nomination for best director.
Hollywood has been in bed with big business too long to award an anti-big-business movie the award for best film. It will I bet award best film to the realistic dramatic anti Iraq War film The Hurt Locker.
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