Tuesday, June 17, 2008

the Mondaneum & the Geodesic Dome


I just read this fascinating article about Paul Otlet (b. 1868), a Belgian librarian who, in 1934, created a plan for a network of electronic telescopes that would allow people to search into and browse through millions of interlinked documents and images.
This is a picture of his Mondaneum (mon-da-NAY-um) - his library and research operation.  This images on the wall, I'm guessing, represent his graphic system to create symbol links between articles and pieces of information. There's a museum of his work in Mons, Belgium that's having its 10th anniversary right now.

And starting June 26,  Whitney Museum is going  to launch this big retrospective of Buckminster Fuller's career ("Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe") -- there was a great article about him in the New Yorker (June 9 &16,2008 issue). 


Both failed in their careers, Otlet because the Nazi's invaded Belgium and destroyed his work, and Fuller, because of the failure of his inventions to work well -- but both men were visionaries whose visions have somehow captured our contemporary realities -- Otlet's vision which basically foresaw the web in a startingly specific concept -- and Fuller's concepts (albiet somewhat misguided) of an ecologically sustainable future in relation to technology, architecture and travel.

All of which makes me think about 20th century visions of the future and outdated futurisms.  What is it that's so fascinating about looking back at these moments when the world was radically different than our own in terms of our individual relationship to technology and communication -- and seeing the seeds of our current gardens being planted.  There's is strange kind of nostalgia and fascination for finding these citizens of present day reality marooned in some early time, trying to build their time machines into our current day or even future day world -- things we take for granted were pipedreams for them -- hallucinatory romps.  

In the NYTimes article about Otlet, the writer keeps trying to say that Otlet would have been confounded by Facebook or overwhelmed by today's web - which strikes me as totally ridiculous to posit -- why wouldn't they have been interested or just disgusted by it?  But I guess it's normal to want to reverse the time-trip back on them... 

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hillary, 2000 & the year of the rat

Although I thought she should have dropped out after those horrible RFK comments, in light of the HBO "Recount" film, Hillary's tenacity makes me think that, at the very least, she wouldn't have given up when the election was stolen.... Not saying that I wish she had been the nomination, since I still can't forgive her for voting to authorize Bush's war, but it does make one think that maybe there is something healing in Hilary's refusal to let go before she did so.

A Rat Year is a time of hard work, activity, and renewal. This is a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start. Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly, and make the most of every opening you can find. People born in an Earth Rat are said to be logical realists, shrewd, charming, ambitious, and inventive. Of course, the entire horoscope must be considered when making any personality assessment.

2008 - paradigm shift - year one (add up 2 - 0 - 0 - 8 = 10 = 1)1

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

protean

Calm in the Swirl of History.  Barack's 'victory speech' on YouTube

So I just finished watching the HBO 'Recount' show.  Crying some tears about the failure to stand up and fight against theft and corruption of  power.  Though the film did an interesting job of really laying out the nuanced shades of that particular fight and that particular time.

Kevin Spacey did a great job of being the soul behind the Gore recount theft.  Though, the real star of the show was Laura Dern as Katherine Harris who conflates Queen Esther with a fame hungry, southern Christian 'good girl' who perhaps believes that she is saving "the little Jewish people" by delivering Bush.  The strange Bob Balaban character Ginsburg who was Bush's campaign attorney - is he a self-hating Jew wanting to hang out in the Power Boys club?  I think maybe he's more one of those Zionist Jews who willed Bush into being so that he would kick some ass in the Middle East and stand up for Israel.  (And look, he's really did kick ass in the Middle East).  Interesting to find out that Lieberman was a turncoat all the way back then in 2000, when he stood up for counting all military ballots not just the ones dated & signed.  (I wonder, was that the HBO spin or genuine history?)


Obama just called our nation "the last best hope on earth."  I really want to believe that stands for the ability to reach past shallow patriotism to a more humanist view of country as a place and not the only place; country as part of community and not apart from it.  

Or maybe it's just that we are at that moment where this is the last best hope on earth, right here, right now.  If we can really turn this thing around - this SOB SUV of a country we're still in...

Oh idealism, stay here.  Help us get through the trying times, make us strong and ever fighting for truth, justice and a way past what has come recently to be defined as American.  Bring us back our Quakers, our abolitionists, our native forebearers.  The urban fighters for unions, the treehuggers, the anti-war activists, the soldiers who stand up and fight against injustice and intolerence - who stand up against corrupt generals and defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights .  Let us remember to honor the land.  Let us remember to honor all creatures, great and small, and the deities among us, the trees, the waters, the fields.

Try the war criminals.  Impeach the bastard.  Let's hope that change isn't just a flip of the coin, but a true paradigm shift, a full revolution in the great wheel of fortune.