Caffeinated Gonzo!

Not sure what to do with your old junker when your are finished driving it?  Here’s a thought… how about splitting it up into pieces and donating it to your favorite local yet cash-strapped orchestra?  With a little time and DIY ingenuity perhaps they can turn your beloved set of wheels (an transmission,  brakes, steering column…. etc., etc.) into a fine set of musical instruments.

Witness a recent Ford Motor Company commercial for their Ford Focus:

[Legal Notice: All instruments were played on a closed Driving Course by Trained Stunt Musicians] 

Bottled water seemed like a great idea when it first was introduced.  After all, who could argue that crisp clean clear water in a nice portable plastic bottle wouldn’t make water more convenient, and possibly even more palatable? 

Now that the craze is in full swing for some time now and those convenient plastic bottles litter our landscape and water ways, many people are beginning to see the devil is in the details.

Setting aside the awesome litter issues for a moment. Just how much healthier can bottled water be if there is very little difference between the bottled stuff and the water coming from the city tap? 

 Also, many people find it hard to swallow the mere fact that bottled water costs three times as much as a gallon of gasoline.  This is especially hard to take when gasoline itself is running damn near $3.00 a gallon on a “good day.”

It’s time for trendy consumers such as ourselves to ponder this issue over  nice cold glass of water and come to our senses.  Raise a glass and abandon the bottle.

Better yet, save those last few bottles you have in your fridge and gym bag and when you finish with them, wash them out and refill them with a few ounces of your favorite water authorities’ finest. 

A fan of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright long before I moved to Buffalo, the connection that Buffalonian’s feel to Wright architecture is fascinating to me.  I can see why Buffalo has  embraced the architect.  When you see photographs of, or better yet, walk around any of Wright’s building built out here in the east, you can just about feel, touch, and even smell the geology and environment of upstate New York in all of them.

Walking thru FallingWater, although it was built (fittingly I think) in western Pennsylvania, just drips for me in memories of Allegany State Park and exploring streams and cliffs and geology around Rushford Lake nearby in souther tier of New York state.

Many Buffalonian’s are justifiably proud of the Darwin D. Martin house and many other Wright buildings located in Buffalo and nearby.  What a treasure!

The effort to build the Wright Boat House on Buffalo’s long ignored waterfront is an interesting project, now under way.  What is interesting about this project and others being discussed is that they are gaining traction now, so long after Wright’s passing (almost 50 years ago!) and are being touted as a bright spot in Buffalo’s future. Now, I truly admire Wright and have studied his work it as much as any architecture junkie out there, and I will go and see, and admire, and spend my dollars to explore the Boat House as I have the Martin House and FallingWater and others; I promise I will.  But, I have to wonder who will build the next great building for Buffalo, the Buffalo of the year 2007, not 1957?

Personally, I don’t presume to know all the answers or the players.  This is why I find the discussions this very topic on the “All Things Buffalo” blog and others very enlightening.

BBC News Online marks the fortieth anniversary of the installation of the world’s first ATM machine this week. The automated teller machine was invented by Englishman John Shepherd-Barron and was installed in Enfield, north London. Bank patrons the world over have learned to both love and hate the contraption (often simultaneously) as it has evolved over time. As for Mr Shepherd-Barron, he is 82 years old now and still out there inventing.

Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says

The Washington Post reports on a extensive new study on social trends that concludes that Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago. Whether you believe in all it's conclusions, this study gives one a lot to ponder.

Increasingly, America is becoming a fragmented society, where people are leading either by choice or by circumstance a solitary existence. Social networks appear for many to be crumbling, family connections and relationships for many either don't exist or are a shadow of what our expectations are.

Add to this a government whose policies push family responsibility on individuals ill prepared to deal with the consequences, while at the same time having pulled out from under their feet whatever social network or structure that might help them family succeed; both are done in the name of individual responsibility.

No wonder life is so uncertain.

Apparently Fry Street is in more danger than I thought. (I really should get down to Texas more often I guess) For some of us former Fry Street junkies that have moved on to other pastures… here is a link to another site advocating the effort to save Fry Street's legacy at: savefrystreet.com

In honor of, and preparation for the Dali lamas upcoming visit to Buffalo this Fall, I am linking to this "5 Minute Guide to Buddhism" guide for friends who are looking for a little understanding of what Buddhism is about.

This sort of FAQ only scratches the surface of what Buddhism is about and doesn't really touch on the Dali Lama ~ it is however a place to start.

I heartedly agree with the recent editorial published in the
The Boston Globe titled "Gay marriage, so what?" The latest efforts of George Bush's White House to push through a Marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the re-ignite the flag burning debate is nothing more than political theater intended to distract the nation from it's real problems.

When all else fails — distract the children!

So much for expecting real leadership from our nation's leaders.

Hammer. Nail. Wood.: The Compulsion to Build

by Thomas P. Glynn

Building a home is truly an organic process. By “building” I am not speaking of paying some one or some company to put up a house for you, I am speaking of constructing a house, a home from the ground up to the rafters and beyond with your own two hands.

Being an organic process, house building is by extension, if not definition, messy. It’s messy in terms in terms of the mud and materials, the dust and the destruction so necessary a part of construction. It is messy because of the muck that comes from creating a home out of a dizzying whirl of creative, financial, and family dynamics. It’s messy because to truly build one’s own home piece by piece means getting one’s hands dirty.

Thomas Glynn’s book “Hammer. Nail. Wood: The Compulsion to Build“ is not really it about the “nuts and bolts” of the building process, there is very little how-to knowledge imparted here. Glynn focuses instead on the nuts of a different sort required to build one’s own home. What doesn’t scare you about Glynn’s unusual book just might serve to inspire you.

See more about Hammer. Nail. Wood.: The Compulsion to Build

In short: A worth read. Interesesting word construction.

Reality Isn't What It Used to Be : Theatrical Politics, Ready-to-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and O

by Walter Truet Anderson

Have you ever found a book just laying about, free for the taking, and actually read it? Such was the circumstance in which I stumbled across this book. Now I am beginning to wonder if my finding the book wasn’t as much an accident as some sort of experiment in postmodernism in itself. After all, ”Reality isn’t what it used to be.” My priest left this book in a box, in the tent where we hold Mass. On the box, with a handful of other books in it was a sign that said “free to take.” Was it really?

That is the question.

This was the last lonely book in the box when I found it. Was my priest trying to tell his flock something, something about the state of the world or did he really just want to make room on his bookshelf?

It’s an open question.

Aptly titled, the book Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be by Walter Truet Anderson, is very much like I suspect the circumstance in which I obtained my now dog-eared copy an exercise in social constructed reality. If you are open to the ideas it presents you will enjoy the read, as did I. If you aren’t into its premise you might find the ideas presented disturbing—Disturbing enough to contemplate using the book’s pages as a less than satisfying substitute for two-ply.

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