Synergetics Stew July 2013

Ownership is going to go - not because it is politically unattractive, but because it is onerous. Man thought he had roots, not legs, and could keep many treasures. Now that we have refrigerators and cans, he doesn’t have to go where his roots are. He goes where his legs can take him. Museums existed when we had roots. Now we should take things out of museums and put them were they belong. Young people will be able to go around the world to see these things. Do you know they are rebuilding Babylon? - RBF interviewed by Lynn Sherr in Herald Advertiser, 25 October 1971.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute published the book Synergetic Stew: Explorations in Dymaxion Dining in 1982. Under this name, synchronofile.com publishes an irregular collection of brief notes relating to Buckminster Fuller.

☂ I continue to index the papers of the Buckminster Fuller Virtual Institute, donated by Joe Moore in 2013. My Fuller collection is now made up of tens of thousands of items and weights over five tons. These books, newspapers, magazines and other artifacts are available for study by appointment. As duplicates appear I am adding them to a lending library.

☂ Divided Spheres / Geodesics and the Orderly Subdivision of the Sphere by Edward S. Popko (CRC Press: Boca Radon 2012) does us the tremendous honor of including synchronofile.com among only a small number of links in the reference section of this important book.

☂ Sam Green and Yo La Tengo continue to tour their show titled The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller. Each performance is unique, including information about Fuller’s relation to the location of the performance.

☂ The 50-foot Fly’s Eye dome commissioned by RBF and constructed by John Warren has been restored. After decades of rough storage in a California cow pasture, it is now on exhibition at the Toulouse International Art Festival in France.

☂ A fascinating collection of links on the mathematics of bee hives, specifically the hexagonal honeycomb. This is of interest to those following RBF’s claim that nature is efficient.

☂ R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE by D. W. Jacobs is not yet available on DVD. But sections of the play have been documented and are online. From the 2008 performance, a trailer. From the 2010 performance, a rehearsal and a trailer.

☂ Sam Lanahan accompanied Buckminster Fuller on his speaking tour of Southeast Asia in 1976. Currently he is promoting a new invention called FlexBlox.

Trevor Blake is the author of the Buckminster Fuller Bibliography, available at synchronofile.com