Poet and Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy and novelist Farnoosh Moshiri
Yesterday evening, English + Associates Architects hosted the release party for Cite 87 at their offices in the Sixth Ward. Kathleen English gave a short talk on how she adapted the 120-year-old church building at 1919 Decatur. From the lowest floor, we could see clear through a hole cut in the floor to the beautifully exposed bow trusses. Gwendolyn Zepeda read from her article about growing up in the neighborhood, which she knew as Del Sesto. Her wonderful style is a form of social criticism through humor, keen observation, and generosity. The party seemed to fortify and refresh the spirits of the scholars, designers, novelists, poets, musicians, and artists there before the arctic blast welcomed us back into the purple night.
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Cover photo by Jack Thompson.
The Fall 2011 issue of Cite (87) was mailed and is arriving at the Brazos Bookstore, CAMH, MFAH, Issues, Domy, River Oaks Bookstore, and other stores. Below is a letter from the editor about this issue, followed by the Table of Contents.
The cover of this issue shows Dan Havel and Dean Ruck’s latest work, Fifth Ward Jam. Fashioned out of an old house, it looks like Houston’s culture—heterogeneous, exploded, twisted, improvised, and strangely beautiful. The editorial team was drawn to Fifth Ward Jam because of the way the splintered wood seems to focus a terrifying energy, like a plane crashed into the house and left a stage in the crater.
This issue of Cite features two ostensibly separate and unrelated sections. Guest editors Terrence Doody and Rich Levy challenged Cite and our readers to reflect on the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks well after the flurry of television coverage has passed. The second section emerged from an effort led by Jane Creighton, Pat Jasper, and Carl Lindahl to commission writers who have insider stories about Houston places. No connection, right?
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A general assembly of Occupy Houston at Tranquility Park
Mic check?
Mic check!
MIC CHECK!
MIC CHECK!!!
Such is the call-and-response that kicks off every General Assembly at Occupy Houston. Organizers have chosen to forego the permitting process which would allow for amplified sound in favor of this technique, where speakers talk slowly, one short phrase at a time, and the crowd repeats those snippets of sentences to amplify that voice using “the people’s microphone.” It makes communication a little slower, a lot more painstaking, but that’s part of the point—democracy is a slow process.
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In this post, Christof Spieler finishes his series of reports on his trip to China for an upcoming special issue of Cite. Read more about RDA’s China initiative here, which includes a knockout lecture series in the Fall. To browse all of Spieler’s posts from China, click here.
The most startling aspect of the China is the feeling that everything is moving in fast forward. From the windows of the Beijing airport express train, speeding along the expressway on its way from the Norman-Foster designed terminal of the second busiest airport in the world, you can see farmers working small plots with their hoes. From their small houses they can see the five-star hotels and modern office buildings of the airport business park. This is 1911 and 2011, coexisting alongside each other.
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In this Hear Our Houston audio tour and contribution to Unexpected City, artist, musicologist, and historian Tierney L. Malone walks along Almeda from Southmore to Wheeler, in Houston’s historic Third Ward that has served as a major hub for some of Houston’s most talented artists and musicians
Almeda (mp3, 14 minutes, 11.7 MB)
by Tierney L. Malone
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In this series, Christof Spieler gives regular reports on his trip to China for a special issue of Cite. Read more about RDA’s China initiative here, which includes a knockout lecture series in the Fall.
You walk down a busy street in Beijing: busses, cabs, mopeds, bikes, crowds. But then you turn into an alley—a hutong—maybe 25-feet wide, between two buildings. You pass a store selling groceries, a four-table restaurant grilling meat over a charcoal burner, a small workshop. But then the alley turns residential. The homes themselves are hidden behind lines of walls; occasionally, a portal opens into a courtyard, crammed with small buildings. There is life everywhere: laundry hanging out to dry, old men playing mahjong, kids running around, men loading a truck. The alley twists and turns; the busy city is lost somewhere behind you. As it gets narrower, you’re sure you’ve hit a dead end, but there’s a narrow way through, a path only six feet wide between buildings. After a few more twists, you suddenly emerge onto a major street again, back in modern Beijing.
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Deng Xiaoping billboard in Shenzhen. Photos by Christof Spieler.
In this series, Christof Spieler gives regular reports on his trip to China for a special issue of Cite. Read more about RDA’s China initiative here, which includes a knockout lecture series in the Fall.
History is always shaped by the present, and Shenzhen’s economic boom gives it a different view of the past. In Beijing, Mao’s portrait overlooks the city; in Shenzhen it’s a billboard of Deng Xiaoping, who led China from 1978 to 1992. It was Deng who designated Shenzhen as a special economic zone in 1980, and his triumphant 1992 tour of Shenzhen cemented the economic reforms after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
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In this series, Christof Spieler gives regular reports on his trip to China for a special issue of Cite. Read more about RDA’s China initiative here, which includes a knockout lecture series in the Fall.
Shenzhen is China’s prototypical boomtown. In 1980, when it was only a small fishing village, it was designated one of China’s first Special Economic Zones open for Western business. Just across the border from Hong Kong, it was perfect for companies looking to establish new factories. Today, the city has 10 million people (the equivalent of the Chicago metro area), with an average age under 30.
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All photographs by Christof Spieler
In this series, Christof Spieler gives regular reports on his trip to China for a special issue of Cite. Read more about RDA’s China initiative here, which includes a knockout lecture series in the Fall.
Shanghai is unique among mainland Chinese cities: at its core is a large 1920s European city. In 1932, three international concessions—French, American-British, and Japanese—were home to 70,000 foreigners. Despite numerous demolitions, much of that remains today. The Bund on the Huangpo river is still lined with old office buildings and hotels, Nanjing Road has old highrises and department stores, the French Concession has tree-lined streets of old mansions, and north along the river there are still blocks and blocks of old two- to four-story apartment buildings with ground floor shops that could stand in for Paris.
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In this Hear Our Houston audio tour and contribution to Unexpected City, Musician Pete Gordon takes us on a looped walk around Midtown where he has owned and operated The Continental Club for ten years. 3700 Main used to be a general store in the 1920s and is now a thriving music venue and bar run by Pete, who loves preserving the old architecture while importing some of Austin’s quirkiness after the original Continental Club. I personally recommend stopping by on a Monday night to hear the masterful contemporary tango composer and piano man Glover Gill. Sink into a Southern pace and the pats of Pete’s cowboy boots while he recalls the area’s evolution over the past ten years, marvels at his favorite buildings, and hopes for preservation of historic architecture moving forward. Listen by clicking on the link below:
Midtown by Pete Gordon
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