Bucky

45 years ago this month I bought my first Jargon book from Jim Lowell when the Asphodel was still in The Arcade. it was R. Buckminster Fuller's Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization. the cover featurd a geodesic dome.

less than 2 years later Fuller came to Kent State. he spoke for 2 & a half hours & I was mesmerizd. when I returnd to South Willow I immediately began writing a long poem in response. my roommate Mike Chikiris took those pictures of me as I was composing. I no longer have the poem but I remember my professor Jake Leed telling me that while it mite be meaningful to me as a means of retrieving what Fuller sd it wasn't a good poem.

a little more than 2 years after that I walkd abt in the huge geodesic dome the United States built in Montreal as its pavillion for the worlds fair. it was one of those tingly moments that great structures can produce. somewhere I have the pin from there featuring the dome.

last nite the Lensic presentd "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe." Joe Spano playd the philsopher/architect who had been such an important part of the '60s for me. I hadn't rememberd the vaudevillian nature of Fuller but I did recognize some of the physical gestures the actor employs. & the script is as full of ideas as was my long-ago nite with the man himself.

at one point near the end Fuller refers to the Montreal dome as his Taj Mahal. that observation began to bring back the tingle.