Goverthing: The coolest half-buried 1950's town ever

Last week we visited my brother Adam in Portland, and I had an amazing time. Over breakfast one morning we all split up a copy of the New York Times. Adam, looking up from his pages, reported "It says here they found a town near New York that has been buried for fifty years, and it hasn't been on any maps or anything! ... But it's in the Arts section, so it's probably fake ..." It turns out that it's this great art project called The Archaeological Dig, though I'm not sure who is ultimately behind it. Whoever it is, they set up the "excavation site" so that you see the tops of everything in this little 1950's town. I love that the New York Times article decided to play along and report the whole thing as if it were real. Fun!

Awesome houses!

It's been a while since my last post (haha that sounds like I'm about to be assigned ten Hail Marys), but I have been planning several upcoming posts in my head! I've been in super-productive mode, and I hate stopping to document.

In the meantime, how freaking cool are this dude's houses I saw on NYT??

They're all made out of recycled materials, and not just "ground-up-and-reprocessed" recycled... more like "glue-a-bunch-of-discarded-picture-frames-together-to-make-a-ceiling" recycled. The cool thing is, they're not for self-consciously earth-conscious rich people who can afford to replace all their windows and home appliances with new Energy Star ones, and grocery shop exclusively at Whole Foods. This guy, Dan Phillips, makes sure that each home is sold as affordable-housing for low-income individuals.

He seems like a real character too. Not only is he a "self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber," but his resume includes "working as an intelligence officer in the Army, a college dance instructor, an antiques dealer and a syndicated cryptogram puzzle maker."

Enjoy the article, and I'll be back soon with a bunch of my own creations... though surely nothing as cool as a house made of discarded Pyrex lids and wine corks.