Please send this link to everyone you know, no matter what side of the debate they are. And ask them to do the same. Thanks! This is the reality, the facts. If you have a web site, it does not matter what the regular content or subject of your site is, it’s time to take a stand and go off topic – post the link!. It’s your site! It’s our future!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

I took this photo years ago. It is of course, the Coonley Playhouse, a well known Frank Lloyd Wright design. Or is it? To me it is clearly the work of architect Harry Robinson, who was carrying out many of Wright’s designs for him when the “master” was otherwise occupied.

I started my own study of Wright’s designs when I noticed that there was such a variation of elements and style. The main-stream historians, acolytes, worshipers and whores of “the world’s greatest architect” attributed that to his genius. I attributed it to other people actually doing the work. As anyone who has studied real genius knows, genius is relatively consistent, and follows a logical progression.

I received an email tirade from a person who disagreed with a statement I made, that the United States was founded as an aristocracy.  He strongly differed, saying it was founded on “the best Christian principles of democracy.”  Well I certainly can’t argue with that.

However, when you take into account that at the time of its founding, when the Constitution was written, our “democracy” did not include women (half the population), slaves (those people who physically built the country), and Native Americans; I would say that those three groups made up well over than half the population.  Tell me, where was the “democracy” for them?

Republicans and Democrats hit by more scandal

Reported by Myron Hacktor of the Freepress Daily Inquiry

There is yet more scandal in the Republican party since it was recently discovered that an unmarried Republican senator, John Freeman from Nebraska, has had an affair with an unnamed, unmarried woman. Both are approximately the same age, neither have been married before or have any children from a previous relationship. The Republican leadership is calling for his resignation.

In other news, Democrats showed up at a town hall meeting for a health-care debate in Rural Illinois and gave up their Constitutional rights of mob behavior and free speech by having a rational debate.

Finally, it is confirmed, Obama is indeed a black man…well half…who was born in Hawaii, was elected the 44th president of the United States and has chosen not to be the “Decider”. Against modern precedent, he has given that role to Congress.

And other scandal in this country, it has been discovered that Sonia Sotomayor, despite her testimony to Congress stating that she is an emotionless automaton, has a secret stash of empathy.

For anyone who might actually read this blog:  Due to budgetary issues, my site (and the blog) might be down temporarily, depending on the leniancy (or not) of my host (Yahoo – good host, nothing against them).  Anyhow, if I dissappear I will reappear eventually, as my domain is still paid up for two years.  So please don’t panic, or cheer, if I come and go for a bit.

Time to focus more on getting money and getting more healthy.  If there’s anything extra at the end of each month, Yahoo will get paid.

The stunning abundance of wildlife is why we love this place. Almost every day there is something new if you keep your eyes open. Today it was wild turkeys, several adults with about two dozen chicks (poults) moving across the front yard.

It is also why some of us weep whenever another habitat is lost to the mindless march of development. Unfortunately, most people that live here or move here weep not and care not. To them, these and most other wild animals are a nuisance.

I almost wish I still did this stuff for a living.  I said almost.  Screwed up rotator cuffs, back, knees and the economy all say “no”.  I need to get another 50 years from this body.

After our somewhat unsettled lives over the past five years, we’ve learned to enjoy the simple pleasures. Today we consumed our first home-grown tomato in five years and so now, this is officially home.

Who says the Prairie School ended when Frank Lloyd Wright left Oak Park before WW1?  Phooey!

This design by John Van Bergen, a Prairie School architect, is from 1965.

When I went to the mailbox this afternoon, in it was a large postal envelope. When I opened it and looked through its contents, I was totally speechless (unusual for me).

As an amateur architectural historian, I have already been amply rewarded for my passion about one particular architect, but had finally resigned myself to the idea that my research was already pretty much exhausted. Then this!

Tim Brigham is the grandson of Prairie School architect John Van Bergen. Recently Tim’s mother Nancy died (she had become a good friend of mine as a side benefit of me researching her father). Anyhow, whether it was by her request, or by her sons’ generosity (or both), Tim sent this package of miscellaneous drawings and papers of the architect, found in a box in one of Nancy’s closets. It’s a long story so I won’t go into it now, but here are a few highlights of what was inside the package:

A full set of not only the final drawings for Van Bergen’s final completed project (for Max and Lucie Gruenhut), but several early sketches as he was working out the design of different layouts. This kind of thing is a historian’s dream! You can see the creative process from start to finish.

This drawing looks like a first presentation to the client – it is very different from the final plan.

Then there are these drawings for a project he worked on at the request of the Mayor of Santa Barbara, to design some kind of public building to sit on the foundations of an old abandoned municipal water tank. (The project never came to fruition.) Cool design, kind of streamlined, almost Art Deco.

In the mid-fifties, Van Bergen had designed a house in Montecito for wealthy John Wack. When Wack decided to sell the house some years later, he had an offer from Bing Crosby(yes, that Bing Crosby) a golfing buddy, who wanted a place to live in Santa Barbara. But Crosby wanted the house to have more bedrooms, so Wack asked Van Bergen to design some additions. The additions were never done, and Crosby never ended up buying the house.  Later some small changes were made, very likely along the same lines, and these drawings reflect those later changes.  The magnificent building was sadly torn down several years ago.

There is also a stack of various building specs, and some of VB’s unused office stationary – with envelopes.

Most interesting was this drawing for a design for some low income housing, something that he was often involved with after World War Two and throughout the rest of his career. Don’t you love the neat 1950’s modern design!

This and the rest of my collection is already earmarked for an institution which will preserve it all for posterity, but I am humbled for now to be a steward for this important archive of this architect’s life and career. I will be busy for a couple of months studying these.

Thanks Tim!!!  (And Nancy, hope you’re in the place you wanted to be.)