Some photos from James Lileks: ‘Nearer My God To Mies:

‘There was no good reason churches had to cast off a thousand years of tradition and start dressing up like bank branches, but that’s exactly what they did.’

Why don’t you stop by the lobby Tuesday and ask for John? He’s the branch manager.

Maybe some of these architects lacked the skill, orginality and depth of vision, of, say, Gaudi?

In the meantime, I’m still hoping someone’s going to attach a doomsday bunker to an Aztek, but until that day, a guy can still dream of the Family Truckster.  Sweet nostalgia.

Freedom, baby!:

On that note, it’s always good to keep an eye on the avant-garde.

This just in:  David Byrne, lead singer of the Talking Heads, isn’t avant-garde.

Here are two of the guys from Red Letter Media, discussing, with some affection and ironic distance, David Byrne, discussing, with some affection and ironic distance, malls in Texas and the American Dream, among other things:

Is buying a $12,500 Barcelona Diagonal Pool table (member price $10K) from MoMA avant-garde?

Is sitting on the subway, sizing-up people you don’t know, merging the arts with rather naked political ideology, avant-garde?

The other day, on the subway, I observed an American male in contemporary business-casual costume. The color of his trousers was richly nondescript.

Is ‘Climate-Change Trans Counseling’ avant-garde?

What about bodies juxtaposed in space within collective interpretative dance? At Peace Pavilion West, we channel structured free time into political awareness and Earth Activism. Touch flesh to leaf. Come on down to the Human Pagoda, my children. It is time:

Help me out, here: