tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10825538093512112382024-10-04T19:58:03.572-07:00It's My Lawrenceville used to be a more specific writing project about the renovations going on in a house that I don't own. Then it became a rant and rave session for atheist propaganda and neighborhood gossip, with occasional updates from home. Now it's a more vague-in-origin, completely hidden in authorship, poor excuse for muckraking and satire.jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-90021975890139735462010-08-12T20:10:00.001-07:002010-08-12T20:44:04.267-07:00

People more famous than me have written songs about unfortunate situations and labeled them, in collective, Ironic. This has led to an entire generation of self-imagined angsty middle schoolers who use the term irony incorrectly until a later age, at which point the real definition is learned and the singer-song writer is blamed for poorly educating our (then) youth; or the misunderstanding of

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-76857504225814969272010-06-08T05:47:00.000-07:002010-06-08T07:04:02.746-07:00

Where do people hear these things? From a handful of decent (and at least one trustworthy) sources, it has become my knowledge that Lawrenceville's sublayers will soon be hosting a fracking party, as some of Pennsylvania's finest groups of Life and those Who Like to Live It offenders come in with their drilling equipment, chemicals, and money. Money to Lawrenceville? Why do we need chemical and

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-74536957355157515922010-01-02T08:44:00.000-08:002010-01-02T11:10:50.244-08:00

Yeah, remember in 1990 when Public Enemy was ready to drop their followup to the massive bomb that was 1988's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Prevent a Few White-Catholic Stalwarts who Stuck Around During White Flight from taking credit for the Comparatively Recent in-flight of Young, Hip White Folks back into the same Neighborhoods that Are Now Pretty Dark?Yeah, I was too young to remember when

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-62411803214565432522009-12-23T12:13:00.000-08:002009-12-23T12:18:01.954-08:00

I tore down the closet in my room a few days ago. Unlike the preparations I didn't make for the wall I tore apart last year about this time, I actually covered my bed and furniture with blankets to avoid soaking the plaster and coal dust into my property.My private property.And I thought I had documented that wall. I guess not. This is where this ends. Bye. No Pictures. No proof.

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-76161497795788685172009-11-12T19:00:00.000-08:002009-11-12T19:09:05.517-08:00

I come back sometimes. Sometimes it's with pictures of my house and my new plans. Other times it's to pretend I'm an anarchist and complain about how my friends receive negative attention from the state while I burn the world and ask everyone why they're not looking at me.This time it's neither.It's almost a wish list or a Coming Attractions reel before the film. Or we'll call it what it really

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-56153744760424755682009-09-29T12:34:00.000-07:002009-09-30T06:45:29.839-07:00

I guess if Luke Ravenstahl can wait until the next official work week to talk about G20, then I can wait until the end of my G20 vacation from Cashiering to give up my feelings about a city's self-defense against unwanted visitors.I'd like to compare our response to the G20 in Pittsburgh to Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, but I'm not really interested in such pop-adventure metaphors. Thursday's

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-65581634522462503782009-09-24T07:07:00.000-07:002009-09-24T07:43:46.531-07:00

I stayed up all night with Landslide kids. We sat on the porch with walkie talkies, looking down at the intersection of Kirkpatrick, Beelen and Allequippa.This is all I saw all night.View Larger MapNothing happened. There was a scare here and there, but when during a police state the biggest scare of the night comes from a suspicious delivery of the Wall Street Journal at 5 a.m., then I think

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-63168783603947783642009-09-23T05:20:00.000-07:002009-09-23T06:41:55.142-07:00

Other than the hungry, happy people in Friendship Park yesterday, no more of my friends have received visits. I made it to Landslide with a friend last night. I walked up their cobblestone street, past the porch where so much activity is normally common; in the night there was nothing. Signs with my former roommate's handwriting hung from each door of the duplex, instructing ex-inhabitants and

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-43113682688384385032009-09-22T04:47:00.000-07:002009-09-22T05:39:45.799-07:00

The G20 invades communities around the world. It turns poor villages into monocultures, forcing villagers to work for whatever corporation has been appointed to guide the village/town/city toward Western-serving development.This is all a very vague critique of what I understand happens when globalization and its representatives enter the realm of the undeveloped world. I've got two sentences

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-74465816347737991632009-09-21T05:01:00.000-07:002009-09-21T06:57:28.550-07:00

Old news, yes, but an update none the less. From the papers twenty days ago:"What we know right now is we're both putting in money to get this event and make this event successful and safe."-Luke Ravenstahl, while trying to make a case for the city of Pittsburgh, and not Allegheny County, to receive retribution for its efforts in funding security and accommodations for our special visitors.Never

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-32107933445268211092009-04-22T11:07:00.000-07:002009-04-22T11:18:35.323-07:00

and my leg is usually in Upper Lawrenceville. That's how this post maintains relevancy about sacrilegous Lawrenceville. Maybe someday, when I have finished this house project, I'll change the name to Sacrilegious Lawrenceville. Someday...My business partner drew the image, I picked it randomly from his sketch books, and Artnoose  poked me until I bled.When we finished, I thanked Artnoose for the

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-72460670682563380402009-04-19T22:32:00.000-07:002009-04-20T08:02:14.607-07:00

If only I had hired a photographer to follow me around and get images of me in the ditch with "Bony Toffee." (Not his real name.) The future ex-director of a community development group in Lawrenceville and I stomped around a sapling to compact the dirt, making sure these folks on Main Street could have their tree and eat it too. View Larger MapSo many times, the residents say, have folks on

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-88182645073922115962009-04-16T10:14:00.000-07:002009-04-16T07:21:08.322-07:00

During his stay in Pittsburgh as mayor from 1946-1959, David Lawrence did a lot to clean up this goddamn town. And he did this early environmental work while establishing ties across political chalk lines on the asphalt; he met many Pittsburgh billionaires (mostly Republican) halfway across the 3/4 inch line that signifies children's sidewalk chalk was used when these deliberators met to discuss

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-88921188830353102452009-04-14T22:54:00.000-07:002009-04-15T06:40:09.816-07:00

I dragged my friend Sara along with me to the 10th Ward Lawrenceville Block Watch Meeting tonight. Well, dragged isn't really the right term here--Bribed fits much more nicely, as I gave her two crisp $50 bills just before we walked over to the Church at 53 and Carnegie, right across the street from 5272 Carnegie, a house which I will live in someday, just so long as my occupation of it is right

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-27999474913085215492009-04-10T21:05:00.000-07:002009-04-10T22:34:47.181-07:00

I went manic and tore the plaster off the wall in the downtown side of our second floor living room two nights ago. The plan here is to clean the chimney brick, poke in a nozzle to fill the columns full of expanding insulation (or not), and repoint the brick, leaving a 120 year old 'chimbley' exposed and ready for judgment. My friend Dan recently bought two houses in my neighborhood. The seller

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-30190342702000602972009-03-28T06:01:00.000-07:002009-04-11T07:49:43.344-07:00

If you're updating an old house, you're already quite familiar with the amount of surprises you find beneath the floors, behind the walls, above the ceiling. While insulating the attic floor when we moved in, we found coal dust-infused whiskey bottles, some with a Doctor's prescription on the label, under the floorboards and in between the joists in the attic. These were from the Prohibition Era

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-47299548419464695012008-08-28T21:36:00.000-07:002008-08-28T21:46:41.090-07:00

I'm still stripping paint on the second floor. I put the paint-removal project on the back patio/kitchen brick on break for a while, which seems to encourage focused, short-term goals more than a whirlwind of projects that may never get done; or at least won't get done until the beginning has been forgotten. The problem of starting numerous projects before finishing a previous project is created

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1082553809351211238.post-47528248181563673992008-08-19T07:24:00.000-07:002008-08-19T07:26:46.214-07:00

I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before, but after almost a year of living at and remodeling 5335 Keystone St., it's time to start documenting it. I guess my first official post will come later, as I've got to go build some wheels and waste my day at work.Bye for now,todd

jarvishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16797069575810316493noreply@blogger.com0