July 15, 2011
Dealing with the aftermath of a gruesome day, S Mall Expressway to stay closed until at least August, escaped horse hit by tractor trailer in Saratoga
Matthew Slocum, the man police had wanted in connection with a fatal fire Wednesday in Washington County, has been charged with murder and arson. Police allege Slocum shot three people -- his mother, stepfather, and stepbrother -- and then set their house on fire. Said a victim's family member of Slocum outside town court: "I hope he rots in hell." [Post-Star] [TU] [Saratogian] [Fox23]
State Police say a fifth person -- an infant -- has now died from injuries from the explosion that leveled a house in Washington County Wednesday. The father of three people who died in the explosion alleges that residents had complained to the landlord about leaky gas stove for months. One of the victims was a promising young pastry chef-in-training on a scholarship at the Culinary Institute of America. [Post-Star] [Saratogian] [Post-Star]
After such an unusual and gruesome day -- an alleged murder/arson, a house leveled by an explosion, eight deaths -- emergency responders in Washington County are getting counseling. [WNYT]
Albany County undersheriff -- and, as of now, sole candidate for county sheriff -- Craig Apple resigned yesterday so as not to violate federal law that prohibits local public officials from running for political offices. Apple's resignation leaves the sheriff's office in a bit of a situation -- Apple had been running the office after the former sheriff retired and it now has no one who can sign paychecks or other contracts. But Apple's attorney is asking a county court judge to appoint Apple to fulfill the duties of sheriff. Update: And the request was reportedly granted Friday morning. [WNYT] [TU] [Troy Record] [@JCEvangelist_TU]
Stuff to do this weekend
XMALIA -- a performance including music, video, taxidermy, and trapeze -- tonight at Proctors.
We're not sure what we did to deserve the coming weekend, but we're not going to ask questions. The forecast looks fan-freaking-tastic (we're pretty sure that's a meteorological term) and the list of stuff to do seems just about as good.
Pick something from our list, or let us know what you've got planned -- but whatever you do, get outside and enjoy it.
Scanning the Albany 2030 draft plan
A map of "activity nodes and corridors." (pg 35 / pdf pg 45)
Albany 2030, the effort to develop a comprehensive plan for the City of Albany, released a draft of the plan this week. The "guide for the management of change" (or "a 'to do' list" for the city) is long, really loooong. The pdf is 272 pages.
Who would ever read through the whole thing? Uh, well... that would be us.
The draft plan mostly covers general goals, things like promoting economic development and increasing transit options. But it also includes specifics, some of which are worthwhile but still kind of oddly specific (example: incentives to increase the use of rain barrels).
If we had to distill the whole document down to one sentence, it would be, in our own words (deep breath):
Albany aims to become a prosperous, diverse, well-educated, safe city, ready for climate change, with a mixed-use downtown and neighborhood centers, where people walk more and drive less.
But there's a lot more to it. We've gone through the whole document and pulled a bunch of bits that we thought we were interesting and notable (with page numbers so you can reference the context).
A scannable list of those bits is after the jump.
Cuomo 2016? No.
From the "obsessions the media have that aren't necessarily shared by the public" file: 83 percent of respondents in the Siena poll out this week said it's too early for speculation about Andrew Cuomo running for president in 2016. As a replacement for Joe Biden in 2012? Maybe not...
All Utopias Fell
Worth the bout of acrophobia.
We were out at MASS MoCA recently and finally had a chance to check out All Utopias Fell, Michael Oatman's outdoor installation there. We're glad we did. It's fun.
The installation is a collection of three elements. From the MASS MoCA blurbage:
The Shining is a 1970s-era 'satellite' that has crash-landed at MASS MoCA. This beautifully reflective, repurposed Airstream trailer - with large parachutes and active solar panels - is inspired by an earlier era of pulp aeronauts like Buck Rogers, Tom Swift and Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, as well as the works of Giotto, Jules Verne, NASA, and Chris Marker's 1962 film La Jetée. Visitors will be allowed to climb a staircase and enter into the craft where they will encounter The Library of the Sun. Hybridizing a domestic space, a laboratory and a library, it has the feel of a hermitage, where the occupant will 'be right back', only it is 30 years later. ... Once inside the craft, visitors will also be able to view Codex Solis, a massive field of photovoltaic (PVs) or solar panels. At 50kw, the field will generate 7% of the power consumed by MASS MoCA. In addition to this 230-foot long grid, mirrors are interspersed in the middle of the field, and suggest an absent text. The arrangement of mirrors and solar panels is based on a specific quote by an unnamed author, and will not be revealed by the artist; instead the public will be encouraged to spend time with the piece, watch the reflected sky, and solve the riddle as birds and planes, inverted, fly by.
The trailer is great. It's like something from an alternate reality, in which you could have gone camping in space during the 1960s -- and the owner of this particular trailer was a bit on the obsessive side. The inside is a meticulously constructed world, down to the jars of tomatoes.
All Utopias Fell is a seasonal exhibit. It's perched at the top of a few flights of metal stairs outside the old power plant for the factory that preceded the museum at the site. The exhibit is open through October.
After the jump: an interior pic, plus a few bonus pics.
... said KGB about Drawing: What's something that brought you joy this year?