ALL AMERICAN CARPET CLEANING

All-American: The Exuberant Style of William Diamond and Anthony Baratta

William Diamond and Anthony Baratta are in the business of invention. In twenty-eight years of collaboration, the New York City-based duo has created a design style without limits: one that defies predictability, embraces the extraordinary, and begs to be loved and lived in. Featuring stunning new photography from Michel Arnaud, All-American: The Exuberant Style of William Diamond and Anthony Baratta is a compendium of the designers' most recent, most ambitious, and most exciting projects. From a traditional Colonial house in Connecticut and a log cabin in Idaho that overlooks the Rockies, to the New York City apartments that define urbane living, the range and innovation of Diamond Baratta Design's work is presented in all its artistry and extravagance.

So what they do is rent the cheap chain motel rooms and have party. How smart!

(a bit more expensive hotel gets all the truck drivers and what they order...I mean, er, old, er, ladies, er...)

+ A terribly drunk teenagers, drinking and smoking all over the place.
+ A terribly yaking shouting adult while males with few women. Partying.
+ Few hobos? moving in between party rooms.

Manager is also pretty much in tune with locals (I mean, he is a local.)

So he goes,

- No we have to provide ash trays in no-smoking rooms - with no-smoke sign labeled - because those people will smoke ANYWAY - whichever room they are in - and if they don't have ash tray, they would dump their cigarettes on the carpet.

- So wait a minute, you don't - ask your customers - whether they want smoking room or non-smoking room - and say, usually, if it's non-smoking and if they smoke there, they get fined - for cleaning up. You don't do that? You don't ask people which room they want - whether smoking or non-smoking?

And seems this was something entirely beyond what he/manager could comprehend.

*I wonder what's the history of this place.

Farms.

Then farming declined?

And then - small suburbs - (when trains made it into Edison/South Plainfield? for what reason?)

And then either immigrants or vast shopping malls - came.

Partying people in this cheap motel were all white, probably grand sons and grand daughters of farmers.

Probably because there is nothing to do after 5 for them. And America's history or this town's history will indicate - how that happened.

Someday these party habits may come to an end. Because it's too silly. But it may last. I wonder how to think about this.

Irish was poor - to the bottom. esp potato famine and stuff. But then I was also told that they've been drinking real hard for generations. We witnessed that in that misty Sunset in San Francisco. How they still gather, how every day they get drunk.

If you were real poor you can't drink. You have to eat first. And at some point, you start to make money to some degree but also get stuck with drinking and partying etc.

And. And what?

There is no answer written by Americans who committed to secularism (and pluralism ) - Thomas Jefferson and etc - had - had enough affluence to be optimistic about leaving organized religions - and working and implementing each steps of 'progress'. They haven't seen how modern routine and speed of events can trap people, lid people and keep them in such status - over generations - even in modern world.

And there is the other side, Americans who didn't leave religions or did make a commitment to religion - Christianity, protestant - or catholic and many other variations - either way.

This latter camp seems to have more to say about problem of drinking, problem of males, problem of community etc. How it can be degenerating, how it can be going down and stuck. (but I do doubt, they are really aware of hell like situations in parts of this USA continent.)

I mostly see the problem on Secular side. They really didn't have any programs.

Only program by so far I heard was Jefferson's one. Pick 10 out of minorities and give them same education which protestant or secular elites get. Top educations for most talented and potentful from those minorities or less affluent.

We do that every year. That would change - do the Osmosis - Richard Feynman - had same kind of idea or vision for making change to happen - and our pluralist society would flourish - it would. It would become a beautiful place.

What went wrong. And what really happened.

We need to get these enquiries worked on - apart from loyalties and attachments we have for each camps and leanings.

My Son is a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu temples constructed between the 4th and the 14th century A.D. by the kings of Champa. The My Son Temples lay in a valley approximately 2 kilometres wide.

From the 4th to the 14th century A.D., the valley at My Son was a site of religious ceremony for kings of the ruling dynasties of Champa, as well as a burial place for Cham royalty and national heroes. At one time, the site encompassed over 70 temples as well as numerous stele bearing historically important inscriptions in Sanskrit and Cham. (The erection of steles was inspired by buddhist civilisations such as the Cham and was eventually popularised in China. Steles (or Stelae) consisted of rectangular stone tablets usually inscribed with a funerary, commemorative, edifying text or other engravings).

In 1937, French scholars began to restore the temples at My Son. In 1937 and 1938, the main temple known as "A1" and the smaller temples surrounding it were restored. Other major temples were restored between 1939 and 1943. However, many historical buildings were destroyed during the Vietnam War. United States B-52 aircraft carpet-bombed the region in August 1969. The surrounding area is still rendered dangerous through the presence of unexploded land mines.

As you walk the area, there are some restoration efforts that have evidently been put on hold due to the presence of landmines - it is kind of eerie walking the paths past these individual temple sites.

Some of the temples in the area were extensively hit during the Vietnam War by B-52 Bombers. Evidence of the destructive power of the payloads is prominent in some areas of the temple complex, with some temples being supported by scaffolding and 'temporary' roofing to protect it from the tropical storms that could easily collapse the bomb damaged temples. Shrapnel scars are evident around the complex as are large bomb craters. In fact, there is one just out of shot to the lower right of this photo.

As of 1999, My Son has been recognised by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Due to being an example of evolution and change in culture, and as evidence of an Asian civilisation which is now extinct.

To this day, the construction method used to build these temples it is not entirely understood - especially relating to the 'mortar' used between the bricks, as there is no evidence supporting that mortar was used at all. Some suggest that a mortar was made using the same red clay used for the bricks, others suggest that a local tree resin was used but no one knows with any certainty.

Anyway, this is one of my early stitch jobs done by hand years ago. Took a month of sundays to complete but worth it. Thankfully the process can be done a little more automatically these days.

I may re-upload the image with a cleaner version given the opportunity.