Archive for the 'Visionaries' Category

Jan20

The Speech

Leaders lead from the podium. Those who say otherwise do not understand how leadership works. Regardless of your political stripes, few dispute that somewhere along the path of the last eight years George W. Bush stopped leading the country, primarily because he failed at the podium of public opinion.

President Obama has been something of national Rorschach inkblot test. People see in him what they want. His (fabulous) inauguration speech today was no different. Many will see in it what they want.

Here are my picks of favorite quotes. What do they say about me, and what does all this say about us?

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Filed in: The Annals of Protest Visionaries

Aug31

Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal

Bill Peshel’s site reminds us of a the 1968 mud wrestling match between Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal. Since along with Jean Shepherd, WFB is one of my earliest media influences, I throw my two cents in the ring:

“Regardless of how one feels about his politics – and the terms arrogant, elitist, monarchial, papist all fit – Buckley was a force that influenced politics for decades.”

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Filed in: Best Of Visionaries


Aug30

MoMA goes ready to wear with Pre-Fab houses

Why don’t prefabricated houses seem to work?

Architects from Wright to Gropius, and inventors such as Edison and Fuller couldn’t make them work. Even with all this visionary genius, prefabricated dwellings have been an oddity in the modern world and often historical artifacts.

This is the struggle that this Fall’s big show at the MoMA, “Home Delivery – Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” tries to overcome. While artists of all types continue to be drawn to pre-fab as a design platform, so far nothing seems to have worked.

More on the show and pre fabs as a model for urban experimentation…

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Filed in: Around Town Art Best Of Visionaries

Jul25

A journler of mythic proportions

Buckminster Fuller had Journals, so do I…

I wrote about the recent revival of interest in Buckminster Fuller stemming in large part from a major show at the Whitney, and about my own small personal discovery about Fuller’s impact on the iconography of our day.

A second, and perhaps more important reflection came as I walked the halls of the Whitney’s fourth floor exhibition space as I spent some time looking at bound volumes of Fuller’s notes.

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Filed in: Art Best Of Productivity Visionaries


Jul24

In the future there are no right angles!

Have you ever noticed that all representations of the future have no ninety degree angles? From EPCOT to Worlds Fairs oval and acute angles dominate. Why is that? It’s because of Buckminster Fuller.

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Filed in: Art Best Of Visionaries



 

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Bill Peshel’s site reminds us of a the 1968 mud wrestling match between Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal. Since along with Jean Shepherd, WFB is...

Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal ______________________________________

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Blurb...

Douglas Barone

A postmodern Existentialist with Objectivist leanings, fighting to catch up with his art, after serving time as a capitalist oppressor of the people.

Doug Barone retired from corporate life after 20 years in the finance industry and is fooling everyone into thinking he is a writer. Having been a corporate strategist, finance executive, and IT executive he has found almost nothing of use to him from those years except the zany people and crazy stories that no one in their right mind could ever dream up. He uses these real life experiences in his work and this separates him from other writers who never really worked a day in their lives either. He writes about the primacy of the individual, the oppression of institutions, and the ability of real heroes to exist. As such he fully expects to be pilloried by the academic left and the religious right, and looks forward to every lashing.

2009 - Click to go to the About Page