#i moss vanguard sometimes

[hosshi027]

A birthday drawing for Aichi 🩵

[i-do-trash-fanfictions]

Thera’s Journal Entry #27

Crow and I have been talking again. It was more than two weeks ago when he had saved me. Now, we’ve been talking even more.

Today, I got a message from Spider, telling him to come see him. I hoped it had nothing to do with the amount of time I had been spending with Crow. Luckily, it wasn’t. Instead, it was about a feeling he had, that someone or something was in or near his lair. He wanted me to look around, to try and find out what it was. So I did.

A quick minute of searching, and I came upon a feather, golden and glowing with light. A disembodied voice came from the feather, speaking to me in my mind as though the thoughts were my own. Though I knew they were not.

They said, “I’m... soaring over trees, storm clouds at my back. There’s... there’s buildings crumbling into rust and ruin. I stop, briefly, on a vantage point overlooking... something. A grove perhaps? It’s hard to remember.”

I knew where buildings were that looked like that. The European Dead Zone. I went there, and on a high point on a broken building, lay another feather.

This one said, “I’m... somewhere. I know that’s not helpful. It’s a ruin, on Earth, I think. I’m flying and there’s these... towers and... ships? I land on a broken concrete pillar and I see... myself? But it’s not me. I don’t think it ever was. I’m saying words I’ve never said and... Thera is there.”

“The Cosmodrone,” Scout said. “But who is this? It must be someone we’ve met.”

I headed to the Cosmodrone then. I saw the faint glow, right on top of a pillar, right where I transmatted. I jumped to it.

“No, not Earth this time. I was home. It was those gates. I had-I don’t know, a sense of dread? Vertigo set in, and I plummeted from the sky like I lost control of my wings. My heart hurt-ached-and I felt so much guilt and... and shame. Regret. No, I don’t remember anything else.” Was the next message.

“The Dreaming City,” I whispered to myself. Gates, home. Was this Crow? It had to be.

I went there next. Headed to one of the gates, and found the fourth feather, sitting there.

“Yes, again. It was like coming full circle, flying through these claustrophobic corridors. I could hear their horrible howling in the distance, in the dark. It was just like when we were there. Except... I was alone. No one to save. I know, Glint. I know.”

I knew for certain now, that it was Crow.

I went to the Moon, in Archer’s Line. I didn’t like being on the Moon, but I went anyway, through the dark tunnels. I found the fifth one.

Scout looked at me. “Thera, I don’t know what to make of any of this. We need to be careful. If Crow is somehow experiencing memories of his life as Uldren... I don’t need to tell you how bad that can be. For all of us.”

I didn’t want Crow to know about his past. I was too afraid that once he learned, it would tear him apart. Not only because he had killed Cayde, the hunter vanguard whom everyone loved, but because he would know that his best friend, me, killed him.

I transmatted to the Queen of Hearts and headed to the Reef to talk with him.

He looked distracted when I approached him, but when he noticed me, his eyes lit up. 

“Do you have a minute?” He asked. “Something’s been going on, and I’m... I’ve been having these strange dreams lately.”

I grab a small chair close by and sit down.

Crow waits for me to get settled, then continued. “They were vivid. Real. Glint... Glint thinks there might be something to them. I’m flying. There’s a green forest. Mountains. European Dead Zone, I think. Sometimes the clouds part, and where there should be a bright blue sky, there’s just... darkness.” He does hand motions while he speaks. “I’m free, soaring toward a distant pilliar of light. But the dream always ends the same way. That light... flickers like a candle flame and goes out. And then there’s... nothing. I can’t shake it,” He says. “It’s all I think about.” He meets my eyes. “Would you come with me? See if anything’s there?”

I nod. “Of course.” I say silently.

I transmatt to the Queen of Hearts again. Scout appears at my shoulder.

“I’m worried about Crow.” He says. “If these are more than just dreams, it could be the harbinger of something terrible.”

I reach the Hallowed Grove. Crow talks to me over the coms.

“This is it,” He tells me as I go through the tunnels. “The geography matches my dream exactly. There was a bird? Or... I was a bird? Sometimes it’s hard to remember.”

I hear the sound of Taken appearing. I hated those things.

“I’ll scout the high route. Can you take the lower path?”

“Yeah.” I answered.

“Watch out for Taken up there.” Scout adds in. “Savathun might be hiding, but her minions are active as ever. Do you remember anything else about your dream?”

There was silence for a moment before he answered. “Someone was calling for me, but I couldn’t understand. It sounded like they were... underwater or down a long tunnel. Then... nothing.”

I kept going through the caves and tunnels, fighting off Taken as I went. Then, I heard a sound.

“Did you hear that?” Scout asked me.

“Affirmative!” Said Glint over the coms. “Did you notice the way the sound scatters in spectral analysis?”

“What? No, I- but that’s... it resonated on the same frequency as the Traveler!”

I saw a flash of golden color, and went over to it. It was a hawk, sitting in front of a tunnel.

“That hawk. It was made of light.” Scout stated.

“It was real.” Crow said. “The dream, the bird. I’ve got coverage on you from up here. I’ll watch your back when you go in. Be careful.”

I was about to say that I was always careful, but I knew with what happened two weeks ago, he would probably have a comeback for it. 

I continued again through the tunnels. I followed the hawk of light. I jumped over large gaps.

“Scout,” Crow said after a while. “Can you patch Glint in to your feed? I need to see what’s in there.”

“Of course,” Answered Scout.

“I don’t understand how any of this is possible.” I heard Crow whisper.

“Guardians don’t experience visions of their past lives.” Said Glint. “But there are historic records from the Dark Age detailing visions experienced by survivors of the Collapse.”

“What were the nature of these visions?”

“They varied. But the most widely held belief is they came from the dormant Traveler. Like the survivors were experiencing its dreams. If it dreams.”

I kept jumping over gaps and killing the taken. I heard another squawk from overhead again. I got reminded of when I had followed Hawthorne’s hawk, Louis.

“What ever is calling you in your dreams, Crow... it’s in there.” Scout told him.

I went in to a large cave area, with many ledges. Moss grew on the rocks and on the walls. A shallow pool of water sat in the center, and in the middle of that, sat a piece of the Traveler.

“A piece of the Traveler.” Said Scout, astonished.

“I don’t think its a coincidence that the taken are active here.” Crow said.

“Savathun?”

“She knows about this. Has to.”

“Taken!” Scout exclaimed as many appeared.

“Out here too! We’ll cover the entrance!” Said Crow.

I took care of the Taken. I had a few close calls during the fight, but was able to get behind cover just in time. I pulled out my Golden Gun to take care of the two stronger taken, and then used my grenade launcher to finish them off.

When I finished, the hawk of light sat near the Traveler’s peice. An old gun sat beside it.

“I know this gun.” Scout said. “It looks like Hawkmoon. Or at least... part of it. I thought it was gone forever when the Red Legion destroyed the Tower.” A quick moment of silence as he looked at it. “No. It’s... an effigy of Hawkmoon. Made from the same material as the outer shell of the Traveler. This reminds me of the gift the Pyramid left us on Io. The one Eris transformed into a weapon, but it’s undeniably of the light.”

I took it carefully and picked it up.

“The dream. The bird. The voice calling to me as the Darkness closes in. It’s not a coincidence; it’s a message.” Crow said.

“Are you suggesting that the Traveler spoke to you?” Scout asked with a hint of surprise. I couldn’t help but be surprised to.

“This may be the only way a paracasual entity like the Traveler can communicate with us.” Glint said.

“Why me?” Crow asked.

“I’ve always believed in my purpose as a Ghost. We are all part of a broader design. Now that the Traveler is awake and whole again... that plan is set in motion.”

“I don’t know if I want to be somebody’s cosmic plaything.”

And that was it. 

By the time I made it back to my ship, it was night time, and I was tired. I had been helping Crow with his what he needed almost all day, plus the few missions I had done before I got Spider’s message. I told Scout to take me to orbit and informed Crow that I would talk to him in the morning. 

I headed to the small room in my ship and sat on the small bed after placing my weapons on the table. I changed into comfortable clothes, a t-shirt and sweatpants (the ship got cold a lot). Scout came in a minute later after the ship entered orbit and sat on top of the pillow on the small side table near the bed.

I laid my armor carefully to the side and went to the desk where I grabbed this journal. I sat on the bed and began to write today’s events. And now that that’s finished, I need my sleep. I’m sure there are going to be more adventures tomorrow.

[simonalkenmayer]

May I politely threaten to eat your hands?

Of course. And I politely decline. Or rather, shall state that there is no way in which that prospect seems feasible, except by way of my own agreement, and pardon me, I rather like having hands.

As it pertains to @vampireapologist…

I was rather polite about it. And it was a hypothetical. She asked something along the lines of “Where are all the vampires? I’ve been over here trying to tempt them, but not one decent one has shown up and threatened to eat my hands” or something along those lines.

I politely told her it was because she’d been looking in the wrong place. Vampires don’t exist and I’d be happy to eat her hands cooked inside her torso. It was a joke. I don’t actually want to eat anyone’s hands in or outside of their torso. I sometimes have to, but I don’t (in my higher mind) want to. And certainly not those of a stranger who seems kind.

She then asked for the recipe.

Needless to say that this intrigued me. What sort of human does that? One worth knowing, I suspect.

Anyway, that isn’t how we became friends. That’s how we met. We became friends through a series of amusing jokes, discussions of popular fictional canons like Naruto, mutual interest in certain sciences, hobbies, and so forth, and also a general helpful and healthy respect of one another.

Molly Anne has also provided me with advice on how to use this rubbish website, explained slang to me, even volunteered to create a three paneled poster-board with markers and glitter to elucidate all the modern mysteries I fail to comprehend. She tells me I’m like her grandfather, which is charming, because I do feel rather protective toward her, though she can no doubt handle herself. She also happens to take all the makeup I test and don’t like, off my hands, has agreed to adopt my old sweaters, and occasionally lets me send her nourishing food so that she isn’t supplementing her speedy metabolism by crouching atop someone’s refrigerator horking down a pie like a gargoyle of the 14th century. Also, when she’s intoxicated, she sends me pictures of moss.

One night she was out and sent me a picture of a man. I was disappointed. I asked where my moss pictures were. She said “SIMON…HIS NAME IS MOSS!!!”

That fairly well sums up our interactions and precisely the sort of thing that charms a lonely, boring, elderly cryptid such as myself. This is a new age unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and what most people fail to understand is, I am alone in this sensation. This tidal wave of alteration is experienced by humans in generations. You understand what your parents and certainly grandparents do not. They are absolved from having to know and its simply understood that they won’t. I don’t have that luxury. I appear to be in my 20′s or 30′s. Always. So I must always stay at the vanguard. So what humanity experiences in the congress between generations, who sit around coffee tables and compare notes on the good old days…I have to experience all by myself.

It is difficult and sometimes quite frightening, if I am honest. Having friends like Molly Anne makes it easier to feel aware, or abreast, or conscious of all that I should.

Pardon me, I fear I’ve rambled a bit. You had a simple ask and I complicated it in answering. Apologies, but I don’t regret anything I’ve hitherto said. I’m very happy and fortunate to have met Molly Anne. I feel no shame in addressing why that is so.

[cryptswahili]

My 2018 CryptoArt/Music ReCap

I decided to focus full-time in this space towards the end of 2017. Seems like a decade ago now.

::::Signal Warning::::

I think it’s important to note that as an independent creative, I have the luxury to speak freely and I don’t have to tailor my thoughts to appease a venture capital investor or boss. I’m a Bitcoiner. I play with Ethereum too, but mainly because that’s where much of the cryptoArt experimentation has moved to over the past year but I would love to help some more Bitcoin-specific art/music projects get on their feet as well. (I’ve also fiddled with Waves, EOS and Tron but not enough to incorporate their protocols into my work yet.)

So, I’ve recapped my contributions and content last year and hope to expand and continue learning more in 2019.

Art On The Blockchain Podcast (AOTB)

AOTB is the crypto-art and music education- focused podcast brought to you by Cynthia Gayton and myself. They are generally 60–120 minutes long and I produce and edit each episode with all of my own original music and try to keep it in line with the feel from my DJ mixtapes. Hopefully, they come across totally different than what you are used to. Episodes 9–26 were all recorded in 2018. That’s an average of 1.5 podcasts per month of conversations with some of the vanguards of the cryptoArt space. A big bump from our 8 episodes in 2017!

Jason Bailey of Artnome.com

Cryptograffiti (artist)

Jessica Angel (artist)

Tatiana Moroz (singer)

Dan Anderson of Bitcorns

Brian Hoffman of Open Bazaar

Jess Houlgrave of Codex Protocol

Kev & Jon from Rare Art Labs

James Waugh & Trevor of Bidio

Ruth Catlow of Furtherfield

Sam Hart of Avant.com

Poppy Simpson of Meural

Grayson Cox, Ronald Gierlach, Brian Gruber & Hollis Witherspoon of Nash Cash Casino

Yiying Lu (artist)

Joe Chiapetta (artist)

Manuel Palou, Moises Sanabria & Eddie Negron of Art404

Travis LeRoy Southworth (artist)

Beatriz Ramos and Yehudit Mam of Dada.NYC

Matt Hall of Choon Music and Cryptopunks

Rob Myers (artist)

DJ 3LAU (musician)

Mack Flavelle of Cryptokitties

Christian Moss of Indie Square

Coin Artist of Neon District

John Perkins and Jon Craine of Superrare.io

Naturel (artist)

On top of these long form episodes we also briefly branched out to FM radio with a bi-weekly 30 minute live radio show on WERA in Arlington, Virginia. For this show we focused on news and on local DC-area artists involved in cryptoArt. We had short interviews with artists like Vesa, Coldie and more. Although the show was a lot of fun to to do, we decided to discontinue it as it was hard to gauge how much it was being listened to and we could only repost to the archaic MixCloud website. Sometimes it’s hard being located in the cryptoArt-sparse Washington DC! lol

AOTB In The DMV Mixcloud site

Crypto-related Music

I spent many years making rap music and somehow fell into audio visual memes this year. Here’s a sampling of some of the releases.

DJ J-$crilla “Cant Smoke A Bitcoin” ft. Chris DeRose, Peter Schiff

DJ J-$crilla “I Wear Gucci (My Name’s Craig Wright)”

MikeInSpace “Pull The Latch” ft. Theo Goodman (Produced by DJ J-$crilla)

“Junseth’s World” Worst Podcast Ever Theme Song

Choon Music uploads

Ujo Music uploads

2018 A3C Festival in ATL

Educator, Speaker and Panelist

I found myself looking to educate people more as the conferences and panels in cryptoArt took off after the historic RAREAF Conference at the top of 2018. I participated in a number panels, discussions and even a teaching gig. In 2019, my goal is to continue on this path by educating, learning more and discussing in this niche and exciting space. Here’s a list.

Rare Art Festival RAREAF- January 13, 2018 NYC (panelist)

Digital Assets- March 31, 2018 WDC (DJ/Speaker)

Introduction to Crypto-art and Crypto-music- April 21, 2018 ATL (Speaker/Educator)

Rare Digital Art Charity Crypto Auction @ POW DC- May 9, 2018 WDC (Speaker/Host)

Creative Tech Week- May 10, NYC (Panelist/DJ)

Ethereal Summit- May 11, Brooklyn, NY (Media)

Washington Area Lawyers Association Presents DJ J-$crilla & Cynthia Gayton’s “Intro To Cryptocurrencies, CryptoArt and Music, and Blockchain for Creatives”- Sept 17- Oct 2 (Every Monday 7-9pm) WDC (Educator/Presenter)

A3C Festival- “How Musicians and Artists Are Using Blockchain” Oct 5, 2018 ATL (Panelist/Speaker)

The Rarest Show- Oct 25, 2018 Brooklyn, NY (DJ/Media)

Art Decentralized- The World of Distributed Masterpieces- Dec 6, 2018 MIA (Media)

a clip from Introduction To CryptoArt & CryptoMusic

Writings

I’ve always enjoyed writing and have a lofty goal of one day cooking up a novel. I started writing on cryptoArt in 2016 and I added a few more pieces in 2018 to the catalogue. Writing more will be near the top of the list of 2019.

Introduction To CryptoArt & CryptoMusic

Some NOTES on How To Start Earning Crypto With Music

DON’T GO DOWN THAT RABBIT HOLE, SCRILLA

“Bitcoin Honey Badger” Acrylic on canvas

Crypto- Themed Artwork and Tokenized pieces

In 2016/2017 I made a bunch of Counterparty (XCP/BTC) related artwork in the form of Rare Pepes. I made mostly hip-hop and Crypto-themed Pepes. As some in this space know now, I have an opinion- that the Rare Pepe Trading Group ignited this space faster than anything else. In 2018, as cryptoArt exploded, the Ethereum communities got behind the movement and hundreds of platforms seemed to pop up as you can witness in real time at dappradar.com. The Ethereum community is big on NFTs, (I personally dislike the name “NFT” to describe these collectibles but this article is not about that) crypto-collectibles and hackathons. I began experimenting with a few of these platforms but ultimately ended up mostly issuing my Ethereum-based art tokens through SuperRare. I really hope to try out Rare Art Labs more this year as well. I also continued using my go-to Counterparty platform to issue tokens using the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcorns sprung up around the beginning of February and I’ve really enjoyed that community. Even met my fiancee through the community (Tinder is for boomers.) KaleidoscopeXCP is one of the most innovative dark corners of the blockchain space and I really enjoy what goes on there. They basically use cryptoArt to break stuff or make you think. I also issued my own, and what I believe to be the first of it’s kind- Proof Of Work tokens to help facilitate my music- meme marketing for “Can’t Smoke A Bitcoin” and “I Wear Gucci.” This tokenizing experiment is certainly an interesting rabbit hole and I look to dive deeper this year!

Bitcoin Honey Badger (prints soon)

Bitcorns.com- CNTSMOKECORN (sold out in a day) & CORNTANGCLAN (some still available)

SuperRare.io- I WEAR GUCCI (sold 1/1), CANT SMOKE A BITCOIN (sold 4/5), FACES (sold 1/1), CLOCKWORK GREEN (sold 1/1), MUH BAGS (unsold 1/1)

Proof Of Share (XCP Tokens)- CANTSMOKEBTC and IWEARGUCCI One-of-a-kind tokens that were both airdropped to wallet holders that provably helped promote the release through twitter. They are basically game-ified swag badges using Bitcoin.

dada.nyc- I really like digitally finger-painting on this unique social media artist site, although I have yet to tokenize any of the pieces on there.

Digirare.com- Cool website to monitor stats and artists using XCP

Instructional Videos from rarescrilla.com

Instructional/Education Videos

I am definitely looking to expand more in the video side of things in 2019. Subscribe to my Youtube and BitTube pages.

Art On The Blockchain Presents IPFS BATTLE ROYALE

Art On The Blockchain Presents BATTLE ROYALE 2: Ethereum vs. Counterparty

Blockchain: The Technology That’s Changing The Music Industry Pt. 1 Live at A3C

How To Buy A Rare Pepe Using Bitcoin

Clip from the “DJPEPE in 60 Seconds” video

DJPEPE

Maybe the hardest thing to explain to my friends and family is that I am a manager of a Bitcoin frog meme. It all started in 2016- Watch the 60 second video I produced in 2017 here. It escalated quickly on January 13, 2018 as I somehow conjured up a 6 foot cardboard cutout to speak on a panel with industry professionals. Love him or hate him, here are some DJPEPE highlights from last year. #memetoo #UCIT

Tokenized cardboard cutout DJPEPE auctioned at RAREAF event

Paris Review calls DJPEPE the first blockchain performance artist

Rare Art Labs Interview

Releases CANT SMOKE A BITCOIN and I WEAR GUCCI weeks ahead of release to DJPEPE token holders.

DJPEPE becomes a blockchain farmer

Pressed 500 stickers

30 tokenized DAMN shirts released to the wild. So rare that if you wash it you will destroy it. In fact, you have to pass interview questions in order to even be considered to purchase one.

Featured in The RAREST BOOK

Announced Presidential Candidacy for 2020

Fan Art became a thing. (Keep it coming!)

Appearance 1/5 on the HODLCAST this past year.

Press

Sasha Hodler - Episode 13, 21, 30, 53 & 60

Bitsesh- Episode 3

Paris Review

The Tatiana Show- Interview With AOTB: https://youtu.be/sOy54YOdxGo & Interview w/ J $crilla: http://bit.ly/2sNLvEj

Rare Art Labs Interview

Creative Crypto Magazine

Bitsonline- Artist DJ J $crilla Is Using Tokens to Promote a Music Video & Rare Art Festival Canceled Following Crypto Market Crash

“Funding Creative Projects with Non-Fungible Tokens”

Steemit

NewsBTC

rarescrilla.com

Launched RareScrilla.com

Home page | DJ J Scrilla

I am not a website developer but I do my best to keep it active! Hundreds of songs I’ve produced, 100s of rap videos I’ve been a part of, obviously the crypto stuff, my art and my mixtapes all live on the site. I appreciate all the articles that link back to it- helps tremendously!

Conclusion

I will continue down the rabbit hole I entered in 2014. Bear markets are where the innovation happens and I’m all aboard this DLT. UCIT

P.S. There are no experts in this space.

My 2018 CryptoArt/Music ReCap was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

[biofunmy]

After 15 Years, Dream Mall Finally Becomes a Reality

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It has taken 15 years, three owners, two names and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxpayer incentives, but a giant mall built on a former swamp in the Meadowlands — and less than 10 miles away from the shopping haven of Manhattan — is finally opening on Friday.

Sort of.

The $5 billion development, formerly known as Xanadu and now called American Dream, will eventually feature roughly 3 million square feet of stores, water slides, a caviar bar and an indoor ski slope that promises man-made snow even in the height of a New Jersey summer. It is an attempt to lure crowds to a spot not easily accessible by public transportation and which most people know primarily from visits for National Football League games or concerts at MetLife Stadium.

But when the complex opens on Friday, visitors will not find anyplace to shop or much to eat. The property’s owner, the Canadian real estate firm Triple Five Group, is introducing American Dream in “chapters.” The first consists of an ice-skating rink and a Nickelodeon amusement park that claims to have one of the world’s steepest roller coasters and will offer regular “slime” shows.

Triple Five plans to unveil a DreamWorks-themed water park and the ski slope by the end of this year, and said that more than 300 stores, the essential retail part of the development, are slated to open in March. During a tour last week, few signs hung above dark, partially constructed stores and dust and orange cones littered boards protecting tiled flooring.

Still, even a partial opening of the mall — publicists said they preferred the term “style and entertainment destination” — is a milestone. The project broke ground in 2004 but construction halted with the recession. In 2011, Triple Five, which also owns the Mall of America outside Minneapolis, took over with big plans to make American Dream a globally recognized megamall. At the time, a 2013 opening date was announced. That was subsequently pushed back at least four times.

In that time, the retail landscape has shifted rapidly and major mall developments have dropped off. Some originally announced tenants of American Dream, like Toys ‘R’ Us and Barneys, are now bankrupt.

“Maybe pre-recession, there were some massive mall developments, but this is extremely unique,” said Vince Tibone, a retail analyst at Green Street Advisors.

American Dream is a huge, some say unrealistic, bet that tens of thousands of people will visit the Meadowlands each day to play, as well as shop in stores like H&M and Hermès that are readily available in Manhattan. Triple Five has said that it anticipates 40 million visitors a year — on par with Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. This despite the fact that Bergen County, the mall’s home, prohibits retail sales on Sundays.

Don Ghermezian, president of Triple Five and chief executive of American Dream, said that the development “absolutely” planned to compete with parks like Disney and would put northern New Jersey “on the map” as a global tourist destination.

“You don’t need to get in your plane to fly to Orlando anymore,” he said. “You can just come across the river.”

Mr. Ghermezian said he was confident that “the power of the center” would attract local and international visitors, pointing to his family’s success with the Mall of America and Canada’s West Edmonton Mall.

American Dream is planning to run a bus service that leaves Port Authority regularly and offer shuttles from a ferry. Triple Five has also purchased a helicopter company to bring visitors to three helipads on the property.

Skeptics, though, question whether East Rutherford can become a tourist mecca.

“Are tourists really going to say, ‘Let’s see a Yankee game and a Rockettes show and then take a bus from Port Authority to New Jersey to go to the mall?” said Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, who has been battling to prevent a development from opening on the site for all of his 22 years at the environmental group.

The financial risks to investors are significant. The development, which sits on state land, qualified for tax-free debt financing. But no local entities — not the state nor the borough of East Rutherford — arranged the financing. American Dream tapped a state agency in Wisconsin that was willing to borrow about $1.1 billion in bonds that allowed the complex to finally get built.

Some of the tax-exempt bonds are owned by funds managed by firms like Vanguard and Putnam, according to an analysis by Morningstar Direct. The bond documents include 30 pages of potential risks, including that attendance “may be depressed from desired levels” if tourists in New York are not willing to travel to the Meadowlands.

“I am skeptical,’’ said Lisa Washburn, chief credit officer for Municipal Market Analytics. “But there may be something about the combination of retail and entertainment at this level that will work.”

Mr. Ghermezian declined to discuss details around the financing.

New Jersey taxpayers have already sunk hundreds of millions of dollars on improving the roads leading to American Dream and have provided its owners with generous breaks like allowing sales tax revenue from the mall to be set aside to pay down debt.

Goldman Sachs is part of a group of lenders that have agreed to lend the project an additional $1.6 billion, but if American Dream defaults, the banks are entitled to an ownership stake in the Mall of America, which is Triple Five’s crown jewel.

Environmentalists have raised concerns about the emissions from the thousands of cars expected at the American Dream each day. Certain requirements were waived, Mr. Tittel said, that would have made the property energy efficient. The mall is expected to consume vast amounts of energy to support its entertainment attractions — including the cavernous ski hill facility that will be maintained at a temperature below freezing year round.

Flooding could be another problem. The Meadowlands, where wetlands have been filled in over the years to give rise to development, were battered with storm surge during Hurricane Sandy.

Discussions for a giant development on the site date to the mid 1990s. The proposal that finally got off the ground was a giant mall named Xanadu, an “idealized place of great magnificence and beauty,” and also the title of a 1980 film, a musical fantasy starring Olivia Newton-John.

The Mills Corporation, a real estate developer, started building the mall in 2004 and nearly completed it. There was even merchandise stocked in many of the stores, but the mall never opened because Mills ran into financial trouble. Xanadu then found a new backer, a joint venture that included a firm founded by Steve Mnuchin, now the treasury secretary, and another owned by Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a billionaire who planned President Trump’s inauguration.

The timing was less than ideal. The 2008 financial crisis hit, bank lending seized up and Xanadu was postponed. The huge structure, which former Governor Chris Christie once called the “ugliest” building in New Jersey, sat empty and visible to the hordes of New Jersey commuters who passed it every day.

Triple Five entered in 2011, promising a fresh start and a new design that would include more entertainment and more thrills.

Triple Five said that the complex would house the world’s biggest wave pool and its largest candy store. The New Jersey Hall of Fame, which honors native luminaries like Jon Bon Jovi, is also planning to lease space.

The constant delays are a sensitive issue. Caudalie, a skin-care company that signed a lease for a store at the American Dream in 2016, filed a lawsuit against the mall operator last year, saying that it was misled about the project’s opening date, its occupancy and funding.

The brand sought to end its lease citing breach of its terms and to retrieve its security deposit, which it said American Dream initially resisted. The case was settled shortly thereafter. A lawyer for Caudalie declined to comment.

Last week, workers were installing moss in an indoor garden at one end of the complex, while other contractors were bundled against blowing snow inside the ski hill.

Mr. Ghermezian said it would be a “great injustice” to the Nickelodeon park to open it as part of a broader unveil of American Dream. He dismissed questions about why the theme park was opening when its main concession stands were not yet ready.

“If you want to be a nit-picker, I can’t stop you from doing that,” he said.

Mr. Ghermezian said anyone who doubted the project’s viability should remember that his family used its other mall properties as collateral and invested “substantial amounts of our own personal money into this project.”

“We believe we are visionaries,” he said. “And sometimes to be a visionary, to step outside of the norm, you have to think big.”

Sahred From Source link Real Estate

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Hyperallergic: The Fulfillment of Crafting a Home Like Art

Linda and Andy Weintraub’s house in Rhinebeck, New York (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

RHINEBECK, NY — Growing up in a cramped, rent-controlled apartment, I had one primary fixation: drawing floor plans for where I wished I lived instead. I studied photographs in library books of homes built into hillsides and cliffs, then combined their best features in my sketches: nearly invisible skylights tucked into grassy knolls and furniture carved into stone interior walls. Now, as an adult residing in an urban center, I’ve once again ended up with living space that’s off-white and rectilinear. I’ve somehow come to accept it as something over which I have little control.

An unexpected visit to Linda Weintraub’s homestead in Rhinebeck, New York, jogs my memory of those earlier visions of what home could mean: curving, textured walls punctuated by bursts of organic material; wholly original landscape features; and a soft blurring of the boundaries between domestic space and the natural world. The value of my childhood wish for home to mean not only earthy womb or cozy cave but also, more importantly, a space tailored to the individual and context, became obvious when I stood in her living room for the first time.

“My creative urges have always extended beyond my art studio and office,” Weintraub tells me. “It never occurred to me that I would not design my own living space.”

The living room

An artist, educator, curator, and consummate writer about art (especially the intersection of contemporary art and ecology), Weintraub is a serial (and possibly congenital) homesteader.

Her homesteading — or “crafting a lifestyle,” to use her words — grew out of a questioning of accepted wisdom about child rearing and nutrition. As a parent making choices about how to best nourish and care for a family, she found that, “in each instance, ‘good’ was never good enough if it required accommodating to conditions that were pre-fabricated or objects that were mass-produced. Gradually, this pattern of interrogating cultural norms evolved into homesteading.”

Weintraub also describes being lured in by the “elation [of] crafting a living environment that is as personalized as a painting or a poem.” Over time, her homesteading became deeply interwoven with her interest in contemporary art. “What began as a personal lack of confidence in the status quo has become a crucial component of my professional activities,” she explains.

Linda Weintraub in her kitchen

Linda and her husband, Andy Weintraub, have built eight homes together so far, all in upstate New York or Pennsylvania. Each move was meant to accommodate a new phase in the family’s development.

Their current home, of the last two decades, is an 11-acre property in the Hudson Valley. The compound consists of three ultra-efficient galvalume (steel coated in zinc and aluminum) structures surrounded by a meadow, an orchard, multiple gardens, and a pasture, all ringed by forest.

Less visible during my wintery visit are a stream and waterfalls, and though the Weintraubs keep beehives and animals ranging from fowl and rabbits to sheep and pigs, at this time of year, only ducks, geese, and chickens are in evidence.

The Weintraubs’ birds

This homestead is the culmination of everything the Weintraubs have learned through previous projects — including the confidence to try out their own ideas — and has been guided in equal parts by economy and aesthetic pleasure.

“[I am] intent on disproving that satisfying one’s needs by personally crafting them is outmoded or obsolete, that physical labor is demeaning drudgery,” Weintraub explains. “Domestic routines are incalculably enhanced when they are, literally, framed by the occupants’ tastes and skills.”

Linda Weintraub with a cold frame

In milder weather, those domestic routines include caring for vegetable gardens, fruit trees and bushes, and all of the animals — as well as foraging for mushrooms, other wild foods, and wood (fuel). In the winter, she slaughters and freezes meat and cans, pickles, and ferments excess produce. The coldest months are quieter and sometimes sadder, with less sun, garden activity, and animal companions. But nourishing foodstuffs and cozy spaces stocked with artifacts from the landscape around her make for rich reflection.

It’s unquestionably hard work, but, Weintraub assures, not alienating. “I offer personal testimony regarding how deeply gratifying it is to nourish your own body and soul, instead of purchasing consumer products.”

Stored foodstuffs

Weintraub says that, through the process of living this way, the rhythms of her daily life have become her own, and her relationship to the societal infrastructure that we all share has shifted. “I have gradually reduced the disempowerment and anonymity that accompanies global, industrial, and corporate dependencies by generating my own sources of sustenance.”

But “going back to the land,” as people say, and finding deep satisfaction in that are not unique. Once I get beyond the pleasure of just being in the environment Weintraub has envisioned and formed, I find it’s the connection of her choices to her professional endeavors that I’m most curious about. I see her variety of homesteading as the application of conclusions arrived at through a deep knowledge of art making.

For example, in conversation, Weintraub’s feminism and eco-centricity emerge repeatedly as the deepest reasons for the choices she has made. But questions about how and where the choices interconnect always bring her back to what amounts to a politicized discussion of materials. She describes her landscaping skills as arising out of an “increasing need for a growing medium,” which led her “to master terracing with the abundance of stone and the shortage of fertile soil.” When queried about the beliefs underlying her aesthetic choices, Weintraub expresses “an abiding conviction that shape, color, texture, and their arrangements carry cultural significance despite the medium, subject, or context to which they are attached.” She sums up years of “comparing the fluid aesthetics of ecosystems and the rigid aesthetics of engineered environments,” both through research and personal experience, with this simple (but chilling, if you think about it hard enough) thought: “aesthetic ingredients embody social values and worldviews.”

Galvalum at the Weintraubs’ house

In her home, this awareness is demonstrated in the way she’s used the built environment to highlight the natural one. Nothing feels predetermined; everything is fluid and irregular, keeping your eyes in motion and your ears perked. Birds call out, a dog rustles, quiet splashes in a small indoor pool alert you that fish are navigating the same space that you are. The overall impact is one of liveliness. Each element that your eyes or mind encounter is calming, but your mind is never allowed to fall into the habit of predicting what will happen next and then tuning out. The patterns and surfaces keep you present in a way that blank white walls never could. You don’t shut down. When the walls, floors, stairs, handrails, doorbell cover, and living creatures all call for your presence, staying present begins to feel much more important than it does when you see a prompt on a coffee mug.

The main house entry, with a view of the aviary

The fish pond

With her artwork, which is crafted from materials like sap, feathers, moss, acorn caps, and soil, Weintraub has a precise and timely agenda: “As an eco artist, I rely upon aesthetics to convey the patterns that foster stewardship of our planet.” This means a commitment to working with objects that decay and shift shape and color over time in response to the conditions around them. The materials decorating her home are chosen for the same reasons: a resistance to the illusion of permanence and to “the on/off abruptness of technologies.” At its core, this philosophy “rejects the authority of top-down hierarchies and replaces them with bottom-up, generative processes.”

Weintraub — whose knowledge of art history and comprehensive grasp of what makes for an art vanguard is singular — says she’s certain that the “movement that will be featured in future art histories are not the artists who augment the allures contrived by programmers and engineers,” but “those who reject it.” She comes down hard on the side of “neo-materialism” — an alliance with matter over the dematerialized or the digital. “Our reinstatement of substance, density, temperature, moisture, and so forth entails a radical revision of contemporary norms,” she explains. “Neo-materialist art is not ‘realistic’; it is real.”

And so, what began for me as a retreat to the hideaway-in-a-hillside of my childhood fantasies became instead a rabbit hole of consciousness about how I move through the world. And though I don’t feel quite able to contend yet with the implications of a full awareness of what’s encoded in my choices, I do find Weintraub’s advice to potential homesteaders a reasonable place to begin: “Be patient. Proceed by increments. Gain experience by taking small risks. Join a community of like-minded seekers. Embrace the process.” Then she promises, and I want to believe her: “The quest is as invigorating as its fulfillment, and the fulfillment is well worth the effort.”

The studio

A set of stairs

The Weintraubs’ house

Casey the dog

Linda Weintraub walking to her studio

Linda Weintraub is presenting her work tonight, February 24, from 6 to 8pm, at Central Booking (21 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan), in conjunction with the exhibition Icons in Ash, Death in Art.

The post The Fulfillment of Crafting a Home Like Art appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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