What Jordan Has Been Doing All Day (and Night)

Thursday, June 5th, 2008 • Horrorthon Posts

I’ve just returned from the small town of Auburn, Indiana, where my grandfather, Gordon Buehrig (who died in 1990) worked as a car designer in the 1930s. He worked on the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg lines, developing the body surfaces for the entire Duesenberg J line (driven by Gary Cooper and others of that ilk), the Auburn Speedster, and, especially, the renowned Cord 810/812 (the first production automobile with front wheel drive and the first car anywhere with retractable headlights) which has been credited as the genesis of “modern” automobile design and recognized by art critics and by museum exhibitions as one of the greatest and most important cars ever built. All these cars were built and sold in Auburn, and I go there every Labor Day weekend with my family to attend the annual Classic Car Festival, in which hundreds of owners of restored Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs from all over the world participate in a parade of classic cars and a competition in which their painstaking restorations are recognized and honored.

The Auburn Cord Duesenberg factory and showroom building (which is part of the national register of historical landmarks) has been turned into a classic car museum, and the museum (which stands on a street that has been renamed after my grandfather) received a grant last year from the Alcoa Corporation to create a special gallery honoring Gordon Buehrig and his contribution to the history of automobile design. This past weekend, the new gallery was formally opened: it features several of his most famous cars as well as his original drafting tools and other mementos from his work there. I created an exhibition for this new gallery, featuring a digital animation of the design of the Cord 810. I met with the museum directors last Labor Day to officially propose the project, and I’ve been laboring frantically over the past few months building a detailed digital model of the car, which is one of two reasons I’ve been absent from Horrorthon for so long. (The other is a book deadline, which is another headache.)

Here’s an article in the Auburn local newspaper about last weekend’s gallery opening. Here’s my animated presentation for the gallery (which is very much a work in progress and will expand a great deal over the months to come, now that the hard part—the car model—is complete). Here are some higher-resolution renderings of my Cord model and here are some photos from last year’s Labor Day ACD festival.

Anyway, hi everyone.

LOST knows what they’re doing

Friday, February 22nd, 2008 • Horrorthon Posts

Okay, without spoiling anything, I have to say: anyone who watched last night’s Lost and who nevertheless still thinks they’re “randomly” generating plot developments and “don’t have a plan” either isn’t thinking it through, isn’t paying even a low level of attention or is being willfully perverse. Damn it, I remember what it was like to see Twin Peaks painfully spinning its wheels, obviously pretending it all made sense. I’m on the lookout for that kind of nonsense since I don’t watch television and have no patience at all with its shortcomings; at the slightest sign of somebody faking me out, I’m leaving. (I’m still supposed to watch the second half of Firefly and I’m wincing at the prospect because I just don’t think its good television although it’s interesting science fiction.) I have a very low tolerance for TV bullshit, is what I’m saying, so I’d be the first one out the door if Lost was actually guilty of all the sins it’s accused of. Anyway, get the DVDs; catch up; get on board.

What Horrorthon is Teaching Me About TOS

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 • Horrorthon Posts

For me, the best part of all this TOS discussion is that I keep learning stuff I didn’t know before; sometimes it’s basic, elemental ideas that I can’t believe I’ve missed for thirty years, and other times it’s somebody’s clever insight that I’ve never thought about before.

Looking at the new/old versions of the imagery from “The Corbomite Maneuver” emphasized how that whole story’s about games of scale, like gauging bets in a card game. I love that Kirk is correct and it turns out everyone’s bluffing; I don’t think I quite caught that before.

JSP pointed out that Spock/Kirk deduce the necessity of a duplicate Kirk very quickly in “The Enemy Within” and what a relief that is. I’d never thought of that before, but it’s totally correct.

The unabashedly cerebral writing (combined with the skilled performances) really creates an enjoyment level that’s comparable to the sensations of theater, wherein you happily overlook the cardboard walls etc. because the intensity of the theatrical talent (writing/acting/directing) is so palpable.

“Enemy Within” has (I realize now) an unabashedly Freudian, progressive message. The script makes absolutely sure you understand that Kirk, when stripped of his “evil side” (a psychological rather than a physiological distinction) cannot command the ship; he keeps screwing it up. In 1967! That’s just so cool; but there it is on film. They really did it, in the Johnson/Nixon era.