Lebbeus Woods, Quake City, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995

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Lebbeus Woods’ Quake City, from the San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake series, is disastrous. Woods has said, “architecture must learn to transform the violence, even as violence knows how to transform the architecture,” a dialectic evidenced by the fracturing and signs of order (e.g. graph paper) here.

As for Caroliner: talk about fractured. It’s hard to imagine many other entities for whom the genre “industrial bluegrass” feels so apt. From their delirious and heavily costumed shows to a ridiculous and ever-changing moniker (e.g. Caroliner Rainbow Brain Tool Imbued With Rust And Mold; Caroliner Rainbow Customary Relaxation of the Shale; Caroliner Rainbow Scrambled Egg Taken For a Wife), theirs is an aesthetic that continues — however unsettlingly — a long tradition of San Francisco Weird.

Here’s to shattering. At least there’s still room for some goofiness, some grace.