You can’t take the city out of the boy…
I love coming into San Francisco every week or so. The visuals, for one thing, but so much more…
Last week had lunch with about 10 high school friends (Lowell Class of ’52), most of whom are 88.
In starting back to work on my book on the ’60s, I ran across this:
It was sex, drugs and rock and roll, and those were all fun. But at the core of the counterculture was a spiritual revolution, in a sense of leaving the Western religions of control, and exploring the Eastern disciplines of liberation.
There was meditation. There were workshops in advanced breathing. The counterculture represented a certain economic threat, because here were several people sharing a car, or not getting insurance, but taking care of each other, making their own clothes, using less electricity, making candles.
The Justice Department was trying to infiltrate communes. I spoke to a friend of an ex-FBI guy who said they had the FBI hippie squad. And they had to learn how to roll joints, the better to infiltrate with. Originally, the CIA intended LSD to be used as a means of control, but all these young people deprogrammed themselves from the mainstream culture, and then reprogrammed themselves with a more humane value system.
All the people I know from that time have, whatever their profession, they brought that same sense of idealism and compassion with them. Socrates said, “Know thyself”, then Norman Mailer, said “Be thyself” and the unspoken mantra of the counterculture was “Change thyself.” And the psychedelics — but not necessarily them, it could’ve been meditation or Zen or whatever —served as vehicles for people to change themselves. And that included protesting against the war, which meant that the CIA’s plan had backfired.
See:
Hats off to the carpenters that built this house!
Diagonal bracing!
www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/us/yellowstone-national-park-closed-visitors-flooding-tuesday
From Chime Serra
A large soaring adult California condor / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The entire population of California condors was down to 22 in 1982, and none of them flew free in the wild. Since then, though, the California Condor Recovery Program (CCRP), overseen by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), has led the repopulation of condors through the successful collaboration among dozens of organizations, including zoos, NGOs, international partners, and local, state, and federal agencies. The condor population has gradually grown to 537, as of the last official count in December 2021. Of them, 334 are free-flying.
As the population expands, the biologists add new release sites, and slowly the giant birds have expanded from Southern California to Central California, Arizona, and Baja California. The historical condor range had stretched as far north as British Columbia, and once included the Klamath Basin and all the ancestral and modern-day lands of the Yurok. In 2003, tribal elders leading an effort to identify cultural and natural resource restoration needs determined that the condor was the most important land-based animal to return to Yurok lands.…
www.baynature.org/2022/06/09/the-reintroduction-odyssey-of-the-yurok-condors
So Hello Lloyd. Here is my last creation. A gazebo? An arbor? A little barn? A playground? (I don’t know the name in English for a small timber frame like this!)
It’s a timber frame type king post truss and hammer arch truss — mixed! I made it by cutting the trees, and then using a portable Woodmizer sawmill. I used only chestnut trees because they are so easy to work with — it’s my favorite wood.
For making the curved pieces, I sawed two sides with the sawmill, then the curved faces with a beautiful old 1947 Guillet bandsaw. Next, I drew the axis of my frame with a chalkline and defined the top and the visual sides. Then I traced the axis and levels of my frame on the floor of the workshop with a chalkline, pencil and colored chalk. I placed the pieces on the lines and with a carpenter’s plumb bob (flat and empty in the middle), I drew the assemblages — this is called piquage.
When all the wood was traced, I machined and cut the pieces — the tenons with circular and hand saws, drill, and chisels, and my mortises with a special mortise-machine. Then I made a mise à blanc (dry run), then the finishing touches, the sculptures. I planed the wood’s edges with a draw knife and used lime and water to create a beautiful brown old-style color.
Now to erect it! For the heaviest beams, we used a long aluminum ladder with a system of four pulleys and rope.
This structure is in “Layotte,” a high-quality restaurant in southwest France, where I made two other structures in the same style. The first one 18 years ago with a twisted roof — 12 meters long, 2.5 meters on one side and 5 meters on the other, so the roof is totally curvy! The table too has a trapezoidal shape, that makes a strange vision! You are welcome to eat in my country!
‘I feel lucky. Sometimes, very cool things come through my inbox. Like Janwaar, from filmmaker Danny Schmidt, a short, beautifully filmed documentary on a skatepark’s gigantic impact on a small village in India.’
Schmidt, who’s based in Salt Lake City and grew up skating, heard about the park in 2018. “I was immediately intrigued,” he told us. “Skateboarding was changing lives in this tiny far-off place. I wasn’t surprised necessarily – skateboarding changed my life too when I wasn’t much older than these kids – but I did think it was a story that the world should know about.’
www.theinertia.com/surf/janwaar-is-the-story-of-a-skateparks-giant-impact-on-a-small-indian-village
From Maui Surfer
The Art Nouveau ‘Gran Hotel Ciudad De México’, 1899, by French Architect, Jacques Grüber
www.boredpanda.com/amazing-architecture-buildings-pics
In contrast to most of what we see out out in the world, there is good architecture here and there. A stunning collection — 50 examples.
I can’t find attribution for this photo, which is on Reddit, and widely elsewhere. Always credit the photographer, people!
To anyone receiving this for the first time, I send these newsletters out every few months. They’re different from social media — old-school in a way — in that they go to a select audience (over 5,000 people now), rather than blasting out into the internetosphere.
If you’re not signed up on the list to receive it, you can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here.
Homestead in Spring 2022. See our recent book,
The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building and Gardening
Back cover
Title spread
After a year and a half, dealing with maybe a hundred contributors, thousands (I kid you not!) of emails, many thousands of photos, the book has pieced itself together, as has been the fashion with our building books. The material provided the content, and the book organized itself as it was put together.
I just received (via expensive air mail from China) the first five copies of Rolling Homes: Shelter on Wheels. 7,000 copies of the book are now en route to the U.S.A. and we expect it to be available in mid-July.
Holding it in my hands, I’m seeing it for the first time. And yes, I am prone to over-enthusiasm, and yes, this is my baby — but I think this is our best building book in years. There’s energy, there’s joy, there’s cleverness and craftsmanship and the spirit of adventure. There’s solid information — and fun. The people shine through.
There are time-tested components recommended by these builders, sometimes in great detail. And there’s inspiration — to create, to build, to get out there, to do something different.
But best … check it out in this 50-page flipbook: shelterpub.com/rolling-homes-sample-flipbook
Want the full book in flipbook form for review? Write rollinghomes@shelterpub.com, telling us where your review might appear, and we’ll send a link (and send us your address if you’d like us to mail you a copy of the book once printed).
Can you help us publicize the book? We will send you the flipbook version and if you like it, could you give us a few lines we could use for publicity purposes?
Want an early copy? Pre-order with a 20% discount.
Note: Please don’t order other books along with the pre-order.
This is Betty. Ford Ranger 2008
Lifted, custom rack w/ treads, shovel, axe — essentials for mountain living.
We live in Big South Fork, Tennessee, on top of a mountain.
Betty gets us to and from town.
Thanks,
Sabrina Peterson
Lloyd Kahn’s books were instrumental in Josh and I creating our very own off-grid cabin. Please consider this an open invitation to visit us anytime! Please see attached photos of our cabin that Josh built entirely by himself, as well some of our favorite treasures!
Peace and copious amounts of blessings upon each and everyone of you for all that you do! Keep up the good work! We love what you’re creating! We look forward to hearing and collaborating with you soon!
Take good care,
Jessica and Josh Courson
