buckyfuller

Bucky Fuller

by Bob on February 7, 2007

"Dare to be naive" R. Buckminster Fuller US architect & engineer (1895 - 1983).

R. Buckminster Fuller was an amazing visionary in both space and time. He had quite an amazing vision in various geometries, and we see that with his "Bucky balls" and so much else.

He always wondered, almost out-loud, "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?".

That's a heavy issue.

Despising wasting things, he put forth and advocated a principle that he termed "ephemeralization" — coined to mean "doing more with less." It purports a tendency for current technology to be replaced by much smaller, lighter, and more efficient technology. The Telstar satellite is an example versus cables on earth.

When I read his books, especially Synergetics ... I was tranformed in my thinking, even architecturally (from when I had studied Sacred Architecture and Sacred Geometry).

As Simon and Garfunkel once sang in "Mrs. Robinson" ...

"Where are you now, Joe DiMaggio/Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you"

One might as a sequitur ask where Bucky is now for us.

Then again, years ago, whilst attending a brilliant lecture by the anthropologist, friend, author and musician, Peter Gold, who had lived in Tibet and also, not by chance, with the Navajo Indians in the American Southwest, Peter declared that in contrast to Oriental and Asian religion, "the closest thing the USA has to Buddha is Smokey the Bear". That was an amazing insight.

I guess there's American Idol now. But that's not what he meant, of course.

One must really listen to "Hearing Solar Winds" by David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir. I heard them at Columbia University and at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City in the 1980s. Hugely brilliant.

Don't forget the late, great Delia Derbyshire, who was, besides having been a maths graduate of Cambridge University, was a pioneer in electronic music, especially at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Lab in Maida Vale just outside London. She put the music together for the opening theme to "Dr. Who". Now who can forget that ?