As you know, on several occasions in the past few weeks we have received Reader mail bearing such profound insight into the issues of the day that we have been moved to share it with you uncut. Also because we know you like to stop and stare at car crashes and bridge-rail depressives contemplating next steps. Today, being rather cheerless and drear all around, we bring you two such treats—one from that same master of the long-form e-pistle who earlier delighted you with vest-pocket brilliance on the subjects of geodesic letter O's and the 2012 Craplympic dream (dead, at last, today), and another from a new voice in the wilderness, a diligent voice, a voice raised shrill against mediocrity and the abuse of words. Both letters, as fate has it, concern the recent excesses of the New York Times' non-geodesic Nicolai O. And both, in their way, draw blood. We begin with the second:

They say that if all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. Nicolai Ouroussoff might take notice of my recently-formulated corollary: When your sole criterion for the quality of urban fabric is the level of "tension" it brings, you spend a lot of time waxing moronic about buildings that "undulate."

I refer to Ouroussoff's maddening habit of describing structures as "undulating." Apparently Ouroussoff never met an undulation that didn't give him a titillation. Here is a sample of five uses within the last year. In September, 2004 he used the term twice within 10 days, and his readers learned that undulating glass panels could hang "like flowing drapery," whereas undulating walls could "create a womblike void." [The New New York Skyline, 9/5/2004; Cooper Union Engages the Neighborhood, 9/14/2004.] In February of this year we learned that undulating might also mean "sensuous." [Groundswell: Confronting Blight With Hope, 2/24/2005.] And there was more versatility yet to come: in May he suggested that, with the undulating surfaces of the Berlin Holocaust memorial, "you feel as if you have entered thegraves." [A Forest of Pillars, Recalling the Unimaginable, 5/9/2005.] Finally, giving credit where credit is due, he noted in June that undulating ain't just for the kids; even old-timer Frederick Law Olmsted undulated. [For the Ground Zero Memorial, Death by Committee, 6/19/2005.]

Had enough? So have I. Please, Mr. Ouroussoff, find a new word. Better yet, find a new criterion by which to judge buildings. But we'll stick to baby steps for now. Have you tried "wavelike," or perhaps the snootier-sounding "sinuous"? While I'm at it, I must unburden myself of another concern: Did Jane Jacobs run over your puppy, Mr. Ouroussoff? What else could explain your one-two sucker-punch at Ms. Jacobs in recent days? [Making the Brutal F.D.R. Unsentimentally Humane, 6/28/2005; Seeking First to Reinvent the Sports Arena, and Then Brooklyn, 7/5/2005.] I can only hazard a guess: Ms. Jacobs must have snubbed you by suggesting that your criticism is not quite … how to put it … undulating enough.

Reader two, our freaky old friend, continues the Nicolai bashing begot by yesterday's oddball embrace of Brooklyn's planned Gehry World theme park.

Dear, Dear Gutter:

Look, I know the only thing more stultifying than Brooklyn is carping about the NY Times, but the girl can't help it: Is it possible that Oussaroff has gone straight from wan sincerity to the subtlest, darkest satire imaginable? Has New York worked its inevitable dirty town magic on this affable Angeleno visitor, and at record speed? It must be so. Surely he cannot expect us to take at face value his observation that, "Mr. Gehry's towering composition of clashing, undulating forms is an intriguing attempt to overturn a half-century's worth of failed urban planning ideas. What is unfolding is an urban model of remarkable richness and texture, one that could begin to inject energy into the bloodless formulas that are slowly draining our cities of their vitality." He's being funny, right? Right? Because, of course,the mere fact that Gehry's Brooklyn buildings are a bit, you know, "thrusty", (and for that matter are a recap of the very worst of the suddenly irrelevant FOG's work, the Stata Center in Cambridge and the mini-skyscrapers in Dusseldorf...), doesn’t make them, like, humane. If that half century's worth of failed urban planning taught us anything it's that if you hand over more than, say, a single acre of city to any single architect this side of CIAM, the result is overbearing, bloated, bleak, relentless, drearily immune to the viral and vital complexity and diversity, bla, bla, bla, that makes cities messily fantastic. Doesn’t matter if the architect is a "genius". Broadacre City? Disaster. Ville Radiuse? Hilarious. Eurolille? Clammy. Memory Foundations? Anyone? Maybe Lord Foster gets a pass on this, but no one else. But the big picture is this: having written such a perfect piece of dark satire, how can Oussaroff possibly top it? Or, like Jack Parr or Sandy Koufax or other masters of the early curtain, is he just gearing up to go out on a high note?

Yours with love, etc.

Posted in Gutter Talk, Words, Words