Hyde Park Blvd

The next time you’re buying oil, remember that Hot Rod is “Double Re-Refined.”  And you can’t do better than that.

Via StreetRodsOnline (postdoctoral studies only).

Street art via Frango

When reader (and brother) G$ makes one of his infrequent recommendations, you can take it to the bank.  In this case, SF’s own Booker T. Jones noodling his second big hit (after “Green Onions”) accompanied by his Stax/Memphis house band, the MGs.  “Time is Tight” was composed for the 1969 movie “Up Tight” and features Steve Cropper on guitar, Duck Dunn on bass, and  Al Jackson, Jr. on drums.  The group’s sound — particularly Jones’ Hammond-B3 organ — defined an era, as did their role as one of the first racially mixed groups.

Most recently, Jones released a new album, ‘Potato Hole.’

The video is nicely ragged and includes members of Creedence Clearwater Revival looking on from the wings.

Great catch, G$!

Keck Gottschalk Keck Apartment Building (photo courtesy of forgottenchicago.com)

Scandalous when it was built, the Keck-Gottschalk-Keck apartment building (so-named because original residents of the three-flat included architect brothers Keck and a university professor) sits in almost total obscurity on University between 55th and 56th.  In 1937 the idea of a modernist structure (especially one that had parking on the ground floor) was controversial.  Less noticed, but of greater interest and lasting value were experiments with passive solar design (including mechanically-controlled exterior blinds) and radiant-heated concrete floors.

The Kecks are better known for their suburban designs and their role in the New Bauhaus.   Last years, a visiting group of Spanish architects helped me to appreciate the Kecks’ (greater) international renown and this structure’s position among the Pantheon of early Modernist structures.  And how the Kecks are largely lost in a neighborhood where FLWright, George Maher and Van Doren Shaw are common currency.

David Einhorn (Reuters photo)

The consensus outlook from the panel at yesterdays’s 2009 Booth Management Conference (Gary Becker, Marianne Bertrand, Kevin Murphy, Steve Kaplan, Anil Kashyap, and Raghuram Rajan, heavy-hitters all) –

– having enjoyed steady winds and calm seas during an extended investment banking boom, we’re in for 5-7 more years of bad economic air and difficult navigation.

In light of this excessively free-market analysis, I encourage a look at David Einhorn’s speech (pdf at Valuelineinvesting.com, among other places) at last week’s Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference.  Einhorn does not lack for controversy, but he offers food for thought:

The Obama team has posed the issue of bank solvency as a choice between nationalizing the banks versus supporting them with lots of taxpayer money.  I believe that this is a false choice — there really is a third alternative.  Bill Ackman has observed that the financial institutions have plenty of capital; they just don’t have the right type of capital.  To much of the capital is debt or hybrid equity and not enough is common equity.  For most of the large banks there are lots of non-depositor liabilities that can be converted into equity, as needed, to enable the banks to be properly capitalized without requiring the taxpayers to put in any more money.

The main opponents to debt for equity conversions are, of course, bank shareholders who don’t want to be diluter, and bank bondholders who would prefer to be bailed out by colossal government subsidies….Among the investors that I speak with, there is broad consensus that debt for equity exchanges are needed.

There devil is, as always, in the details, but Einhorn has lots of interesting things to say beyond his perspective on Lehman and the banks — in particular stuff about AIG, Buffett, and Moody’s.

Thanks to reader RS for pointing us in the right direction.

Andre de Dienes famous 1953 photo,  one of a series from the Julien’s Auction Summer Sale. Silver gelatin printed circa 1958, artist stamped, 11×12 3/4 inches; auction estimate $2,000-$4,000, minimum bid $1,000.  Cocktail dresses, purses, furs, jewelry, and a ‘Seven-Year Itch” cardboard promotional stand-up, among other fetish objects, also available.

For my money, nothing starts the day like a nice pint of milk.

MoCoLoCo reports weekly on design from Tokyo.  May 20 featured this lamp made of 1.5mm optical fibre, the third iteration of the Kurage Lamp by Schemata Architecture Office more info at jimonlight.

The first of a new series of objects that catch my fancy.

Another via Frango.  Did he notice the link between this and the one posted below?

Aurora via Frango

Clapton explains the degree of difficulty in making music that sounds so easy and then demonstrates the residue of hard work and talent.

Why Robert Johnson is under-appreciated. And why Eric Clapton isn’t.