Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
July 15 ñ November 26, 2005
Wed-Fri, 12pm-4pm
Sat 11am-5pm

Opening Reception:
Friday July 15, 6:00
$3 admission, free for BMCM+AC members and AIA members
Exhibition co-sponsors: Rupert Ravens, nices inc., and AIA Asheville

An exhibition exploring the genius of R. Buckminster Fuller through two- and three dimensional works.

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the most inventive, influential, and inspiring figures of the 20th century. Through his ideas and inventions, his teaching and lecturing around the globe, he influenced current thought in a wide variety of fields, including commercial and industrial design, mathematics, the sciences, the arts and architecture. His basic approach was to apply both scientific knowledge and creativity to think ìoutside the boxî when attempting to solve practical problems. Buckyís foremost concern was to find ways to ìdo more with lessî and to use resources most efficiently to serve humanity. He invented the term ìSpaceship Earthî to encourage people to see the entire world as one interdependent system. During his life and career, Fuller was awarded 25 U.S. patents, wrote 28 books, received 47 honorary doctorate degrees, circled the Earth 57 times consulting and lecturing, and received dozens of major architectural and design awards along with the prestigious Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in America. Buckminster Fuller taught at Black Mountain College in the summers of 1948 and 1949, and he served as the Director of the BMC Summer Institute in 1949.

The exhibition IDEAS+ INVENTIONS: Buckminster Fuller and Black Mountain College will include two-dimensional and three-dimensional works that present and explore Fullerís ideas. Also included in the show will be photographs taken of him and his students at Black Mountain College during the summers of 1948 and 1949, a Dymaxion map, and an autographed drawing of a geodesic dome. People can assemble models based on Fullerís inventions and fully experience his genius in a special hands-on area.

Radio interview on WUNC’s The State of Things
October 11th, 2005

Buckminster Fuller: In 1948, Buckminster Fuller, then a visiting teacher at Black Mountain College in Western North Carolina, built his first geodesic dome. It collapsed. The next summer he returned to Black Mountain and succeeded. Fuller later became famous for his domes and inventions, including the Dymaxion car, Dymaxion map, and World Game. A current exhibit at the Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center in Asheville looks back at those inventions and Fuller’s time in North Carolina. Host Frank Stasio talks with John Wright, board chairman at Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center in Asheville; Lloyd Steven Sieden, author of Buckminster Fuller’s Universe: His Life and Work (Perseus/2000); Jay Baldwin, author of Bucky Works: Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today (Wiley/1997); and David McConville, BMCM+AC board member and co-founder of the Elumenati, a company in Asheville that designs immersive projection environments.

“CHANGE THEE WAY TO PERCEIVE AND CHANGE ALL MEMORY”

Artist: BREYER P-ORRIDGE

(Genesis and Lady Jaye…)

CURATED by LIA GANGIATANO.
At
PARTICIPANT INC.,
95 RIVINGTON STREET ( near Stanton)
(Lower East Side)
NEW YORK CITY. NY 10002
Tel: 212-254-4334

Runs from Sunday October 16th 2005 until November 15th
2005.

OPENING on Sunday October 16th 6pm-9pm.

The exhibition is of new works, sculptures,
installations, collage/paintings and mysteries
exploring PANDROGENY and their journey through mental
and medical proceedures to represent evolution through
mutation, the creation of a third being ( as Burroughs
and Gysin explored with writing to generate the Third
Mind) by the artists which they call THEE PANDROGYNE.
They also explore identity and behaviour as a
fictional muteable medium in which NOTHING especially
the physical body, is sacred. Many of the works on
show include detailed geologies of their ritual
directed orgasms and processes. This is the first
exhibition by BREYER P-ORRIDGE in the United States.

Los Angeles Times

War critics and some military leaders disapprove of the president’s carefully staged videoconference with soldiers in Iraq.

By Warren Vieth and Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writers

October 14, 2005

WASHINGTON ó President Bush touched off a new round of controversy over his policies in Iraq on Thursday when he conducted a videoconference interview about this weekend’s constitutional referendum with a small group of handpicked troops stationed in Iraq who reinforced his upbeat view of the conflict.

The closely coordinated exchange drew disapproval from Democratic critics of the war as well as some Pentagon military leaders.

The soldiers were carefully coached. Before the session began, a Pentagon communications official, Allison Barber, was heard asking one of them, “Who are we going to give that to?”

Barber later told reporters that the soldiers were told only about broad themes Bush wanted to discuss, not specific questions.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said he did not think the soldiers had been told what they could or could not say.

“The troops can ask the president whatever they want,” he said. “They’ve always been free to do that.”

Bush did not invite the soldiers to ask any questions, however, and none chose to do so.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita later issued a statement saying: “On behalf of these fine young men and women, we certainly regret any perception that they were told what to say. It is not the case.”

The president spoke into a video screen to 10 U.S. soldiers and one Iraqi officer seated outdoors in Tikrit, the hometown of ousted President Saddam Hussein.

“What’s your strategy, and how do you think it’s going?” Bush asked.

Capt. Brent Kennedy of the Army’s 42nd Infantry Division said U.S. and Iraqi forces were working together to secure more than 1,250 polling places for Saturday’s vote. “We’re working right alongside with the Iraqis as they lead the way in securing these sites,” Kennedy said.

With Iraqi troop readiness at the center of the war debate, Bush’s discussion with the troops was questioned by war critics such as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who complained that it was “highly scripted,” and by military officers.

“Officers are upset that military people would be coached as to how to talk to the president,” said a senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s against everything that people in uniform stand for.”

Sgt. Corine Lombardo of Scotia, N.Y., told Bush that Iraqi forces had shown significant improvement over the last 10 months.

“Since we began our partnership, they have improved greatly,” Lombardo said.

Added 1st Lt. Gregg A. Murphy of Tennessee: “The important thing here is that the Iraqi army and the Iraqi security forces, they’re ready, and they’re committed. They’re going to make this thing happen.”

Capt. David Williams of Los Angeles told Bush that voter registration had increased by 400,000, or 17%, in areas patrolled by the 42nd Infantry Division. He said Iraqi citizens had indicated they “are ready and eager to vote in this referendum.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon released its second quarterly report to Congress on the war, saying that although the number of Iraqi battalions capable of fighting alongside U.S. units had increased, infiltration of the Iraqi police by insurgents remained a significant problem.

Oct 10 Los Angeles Times
A clandestine group lets air out of tires as a form of protest. The vehicles’ owners are not amused.

By Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writer

PARIS ó If the French marauders known as The Deflated waged their brand of urban subversion in Southern California, the mecca of the sport utility vehicle, by now they would probably have been jailed, beaten, shot or at least sued.

But five weeks after the clandestine crew of environmentalists launched a low-intensity war on SUVs in Paris, there are no casualties to report. Except, of course, for dozens of deflated gas-guzzling vehicles, said Sous-Adjudant Marrant (Sub-Warrant Officer Joker), the mysterious, masked leader of Les DÈgonflÈs.

Under cover of night, Marrant’s troops target Jeep Cherokees, Porsche Cayennes and other four-wheel-drive vehicles parked on the tree-lined avenues and cobblestoned lanes of wealthy neighborhoods. The eco-guerrillas deflate tires without damaging them, smear doors with mud and paste handbills on windshields proclaiming that the vehicles are dangerous, polluting behemoths that do not belong in the city.

“We use the mud to say that if the owners will not take the four-wheel-drives to the countryside, we will bring the countryside to the four-wheel-drives,” said Marrant, 28, who uses an alias because angry drivers deluge his website, http://degonfle.blogg.org with e-mails threatening mayhem and questioning his manhood.

Although his nom de guerre was inspired by Subcommander Marcos, the masked Mexican guerrilla revered by leftists, Marrant insists he is not violent or even particularly serious. “Deflated” is a self-deprecating name that also means “coward” in French. The group wants to send a mischievous message while avoiding damage to the vehicles, injury and prosecution, the thin, mop-haired activist said during an interview in a corner cafe on the Seine’s left bank, longtime turf of radicals and revolutionaries.

“We emphasize the comic, the burlesque side,” Marrant said with the earnest, wide-eyed look of a prankster trying to keep a straight face. “It would be hard to take us to court. We don’t slash tires, we deflate them. Air doesn’t cost anything. As for getting cars dirty, that’s nothing. I would plead guilty to that. Our rules are to never run from the police. And always run from the owners.”

The rise of anti-SUV activism in France shows that one man’s vandal can be another man’s avenger. The deflators are on the fringe of a movement that has considerable support at City Hall, which is governed by an alliance of the Socialist and Green parties.

Christophe Delabre, the president of a French association of SUV owners, has appeared in a television debate with Marrant, who wore sunglasses, a baseball cap and a bandanna to conceal his identity. Delabre does not find his adversary amusing.

“It’s comparable to extremism, to discrimination, to inciting hate,” Delabre said. “You can’t stigmatize a category of the population with impunity under the pretext that they drive a kind of vehicleÖ. [The Deflated] put others’ lives in danger, and that’s unacceptable. It’s out of the question that this kind of action is tolerated in France. I don’t understand how the police can arrest deflators and let them go a few hours later.”

Although city leaders don’t condone vandalism, officials have gone as far as proposing that Paris ban sport utility vehicles. Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin, who oversees transportation programs, has called the SUV “a caricature of a car.”

Baupin spoke during a recent rally of about 200 activists at a Jeep dealership where the manager had agreed to shut down early for the day. The decision drew cheers from children wearing cow and buffalo masks, cyclists hoisting bikes triumphantly aloft.

“An SUV is totally useless for Paris,” Baupin said in his speech, blaming the recent devastating hurricanes in the U.S. on climate change caused by pollution. “The situation is striking: The country that refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol suffered from a climatic catastropheÖ. We all feel sorry for the dead in New Orleans. But now maybe the United States should start considering that their development pattern is not to be repeated worldwide and that it causes environmental problems.”

In the United States, sport utility vehicles account for one of every four automobiles sold, but in France, SUVs represent only about 5% of the market. The prices are high for middle-class families, but sales jumped about 20% last year.

Overt official hostility has encouraged antisocial attacks masquerading as activism, Delabre charged.

“This reflects the impact of the statements made during the last two years by Mr. Baupin,” he said. “He has told anyone listening, and the media helped him a lot, that four-wheel-drives should be banned. I criticized him because that kind of talk surprised me coming from an elected representative.”

Like other historic European capitals, Paris struggles with overwhelming traffic that challenges even the smallest cars and steeliest drivers. Double-parked delivery trucks block narrow streets. Swarms of motorcyclists zoom the wrong way on congested boulevards. Parking garages, impossibly small, seem designed by sadists.

Spurred by the take-back-the-streets attitude of the Greens, City Hall is trying to discourage cars in favor of mass transit, biking and walking. In addition, the national government has imposed a new tax on high-polluting vehicles that works out to about $300 per owner, but varies depending on emission levels.

And the Deflated are stepping up their stealthy fight. Marrant is writing a children’s song as an anthem for the cause. He also hopes to record a dance-mix version before Saturday, when activists plan an international wave of anti-SUV operations ó by daylight, this time ó in France, Britain, Canada and Australia.

“The point is to focus on consumers,” he said, spewing smoke from a Gaulois cigarette into the haze shrouding the crowded cafe. “We have to get past the idea that there’s always a single, identifiable villain: the president, the corporation, the chief executive. Our campaign has to be very marketing, shocking, provocative. I want to make it fashionable to be anti-4X4.”

Marrant is unemployed, though he has dabbled in journalism. His brother works for a major European corporation. His group numbers about 20, he said. They come from a mix of middle- and working-class backgrounds and anti-globalization and environmental groups.

The Deflated have made contact with like-minded activists in the United States. Marrant is familiar with the U.S. television advertising campaign that equated buying an SUV with financing Islamic terrorism. But he finds it too gloomy.

He says the French public supports his group’s approach. People send e-mails asking to participate or suggesting tactics, such as a special tool the activists now use for lightning-fast deflations.

“It’s a kind of key that deflates a tire very fast and completely, in two seconds,” he said. “A mechanic sent an e-mail telling us about it. He said, ‘You can do better than you have been doing.’ ”

Delabre, meanwhile, fears an eventual confrontation.

“I put myself in the place of an owner of a four-wheel-drive who sees people messing up his vehicle,” he said. “I worry that things will get out of control. We can’t accept that in our fine democracy. People have died for the freedom we have today.”

*

Claire Rocher and Achrene Sicakyuz in The Times’ Paris Bureau contributed to this report.

Courtesy Mark Pilkington!

from Fat Possum:

PAUL JONES
July 1, 1946 – October 9, 2005

We are sad to announce that Paul Jones died of cancer on Sunday, October 9, in Jackson, MS.

A memorial service will be held at 1 o’clock this Saturday, October 15 at the elementary school gym in Belzoni, MS.