LOGAN COUNTY, Okla. — A curiosity rises amid the wheat fields along rural Highway 33, which cuts through the town of Guthrie.
It’s an immense, circular building — about 15,000 square feet inside — with a domed roof topped by an ornate cupola and a copper eagle. Standing at 72 feet, it is visible for miles on the flat Oklahoma expanse.
Jay Branson is building it in his backyard. He calls it his round barn, but it’s more of a prairie cathedral.
He has been working on it for seven years. As he builds, strangers come. They pull off the highway, haul up his long driveway and stare.
Some, overcome by the beauty, have wept upon seeing the inside of the dome, with its ascending rings of interlocking diamonds and octagons that Jay cut by hand from poplar wood.
At the top is an oculus, a round opening in the roof, like in the Pantheon in Rome. When sunlight streams in, the effect is downright heavenly.
LA Times
BY HAILEY BRANSON-POTTS | STAFF WRITER
MARCH 9, 2023
Sent us by Maui Surfer
archive.is/XmYA1
Hi Lloyd,
I wrote to you years ago about a Japanese inspired tiny house caboose that I was building. You encouraged me to send photos and you might post it. Well, the Tansu caboose has been done for a number of years and I am moving to Peru so she is up for sale. Would you consider putting on your site and social media? If so, it would be very much appreciated! I really want it to find the right home. I have poured my heart and soul into it and I want it to go to someone who knows what it is.
I have been a maker of fine bows for stringed instruments for 22 years. The Tansu caboose has been my home and bow shop since it’s launch. You can check out my work here.
www.robertmorrowbowmaker.com
I hope this note finds you well!
All the best,
Robert Morrow
360-301-2137
Here is the link for the sale listing:
seattle.craigslist.org/see/tro/d/quilcene-tiny-house-japanese-inspired/7584954611.html
The seller adds this request: “The asking price is $119,000 OBO. Please contact me only if you are a potential buyer. If you know that this caboose is out of your price range or if you simply are curious about the construction I would prefer that you not contact me.”
by Allegra Rosenberg
The only continent with no history of human habitation, the vast ice fields of Antarctica have formed a blank slate onto which humanity can project itself: all of itself, from the imperial superego to the conspiratorial id.
At the turn of the 20th century, Antarctica was still largely unknown. As Apsley Cherry-Garrard observed in the introduction to his classic book The Worst Journey in the World (1922): “Even now the Antarctic is to the rest of the earth as the Abode of the Gods was to the ancient Chaldees, a precipitous and mammoth land lying far beyond the seas which encircled man’s habitation.” But despite the hundred-plus years of exploration, habitation, and documentation since then, Antarctica remains utterly Other. It’s far away, it’s unlike anywhere else on the planet, and most people will never go there. They’ll only see pictures, and watch classic films like The Thing (01982) which project an image of peril and isolation onto the public consciousness.…
longnow.org/ideas/the-truth-about-antarctica
Unfortunately, it gets cut off before the end
But…
Willie Dixon on bass.
Gotta say, at least the way I feel now, is that this is my favorite album of all time.* Just heard it while driving along Highway One Tuesday night. A 3-mile slow run, along with a few shots of single malt earlier, then this playing while skirting the coast: a sweet spot in time.
The elegance of pure blues. The single notes, the timing, the structure, the simplicity, the adherence to formulas…
These concerts took place in Europe in 1963. Muddy Waters, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williams, Slim Harpo, Willy Dixon, Victoria Spivey…
I was an insurance broker in San Francisco then. I think if I’d heard this then, my life might’ve taken a different direction.
Great-grandfather Stuart Grant, 89, moved into the cottage he bought as a wreck with no roof and no doors in 1984, while he was renovating a house.
But he found it so satisfying doing DIY on the quirky outbuilding which dated back 200 years, that he decided to make it his home.…
From comment on blog by Anon, Feb 13, 2023
Lloyd,
Found these photos with interior shots of first house I ever made. Using salvage and recycled materials, it had electric power and wood heat and cost under $200 to build.
–Eleanor Alice
Excerpted from article in NY Times February 10, 2023, by Julie Lasky
So for the first installment of a new column called “Living Small” — exploring the choices some people are making to live as simply, sustainably or compactly as possible, for ethical or aesthetic reasons, or both — we visited the association’s annual trade fair, the International Builders’ Show, to see how builders, manufacturers and architects are responding to this struggle.…
And who doesn’t love a little house? Visitors swarmed an outdoor area of the show where several factory-built examples had been erected. The most eye-catching was Casita, a 375-square-foot house that could be hauled to its site by a Tesla and unfolded like a flat-packed box. Manufactured by Boxabl, a Nevada-based company, Casita comes with plumbing, electricity and appliances, and costs $60,000. According to David Thompson, the company’s social media manager, 160,000 names are on the waiting list, and Elon Musk uses one as a guesthouse at his ranch in Boca Chica, Texas.
Next to Casita was a Boxabl sibling created from two vertically stacked modules joined by a spiral staircase. The cost-cutting finishes of the houses lent a disposable feeling, like Ikea furniture on an enormous scale, but it was hard to argue with the price and speed of assembly. (Unfolding a module takes about an hour, Mr. Thompson said.)…
From MauiSurfer
