Ayla Rose, 16 months, reading the mini book of Small Homes yesterday at the Mother Earth News Faire. She kept turning pages, and then followed me over to the stage where I was about to do a presentation on the book. (She even had the book right side up, i.e., not upside down.)

Jim Morrison said once that when they (The Doors) finished a record, only then were they released to start thinking about the next one. When I finished Small Homes, I couldn’t think what to do next. I’d sort of run the gamut of 9″x12′ building books, each with about color 1000 photos, from Home Work to Small Homes. Retire? No way! I’m just getting warmed up.

About the same time there was an explosion of articles, TV specials, museum exhibits, and conferences rehashing “The Summer of Love.” (Yes, I know I’ve written this before, but I’m further into it all now.)

Since my take on the years was so different from everything being written or presented, I decided to write my own version of the ’60s. (I was there.) The project seemed to gather momentum as I proceeded. I started having fun. I hadn’t looked back at those times in any sort of organized way, and I found myself not only marveling at what happened, but having new insights with the perspective of 5 decades.

Plus, the 60s weren’t an abstraction for me. The concepts, the spirit, the new knowledge profoundly changed my life. (I just realized this now.)

Stop, children, what’s that sound,

Everybody look—what’s going down.

                             -Buffalo Springfield

Read More …

I was looking through one of my many filing cabinets (which contain old school file folders containing papers and photos) the other day and discovered about 15 folders on a book I started to write in the late ’70s. It was going to be called Home Work* and was about my building experiences, starting with my first building (studio with a “living roof” in 1962), then building homes over the next 17-18 years. I took them out of the filing cabinet and put them in this box:

Back then, I felt that I could offer guidance to novice builders, based on the fact that I started building from scratch. No carpentry training or previous construction experience.

I’d made a lot of mistakes that I could warn first-time builders about, and I had ideas for simple homes based on practicality and economy– and ones that felt good.

I wanted to encourage people to use their own hands to build their own homes. I’d done it, and never had a bank mortgage or paid rent.

The project got interrupted by my publishing Stretching by Bob Anderson in 1980 and then 20 years of publishing fitness books. Karma, I guess.

Read More …

A letter like this makes it all seem worthwhile. This is from a prisoner at a multi-security prison in New Hampshire. We sent him 3 building books. (We have a long-standing policy of sending free books to any inmates that request them.)

I apologize for the delay in responding to your last letter. It’s just that you left me in a state of shock, so all I can say is: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

It is easy to become dehumanized in this place. After a while we all buy into the rhetoric about how useless we are, So when someone comes along and does something that reminds us that we are still human and worth something (if only in the hearts of a few), it can be disorienting.

Thank you for disorienting me!

I have finished with all three books, and they have now been donated to our library. I have an entire composition book full of notes and designs based on these books.With the present status of my case, I have no idea when I am getting out. However, when I do get out, I will have a plan, and your books will have been a significant contributor to that plan. Who knows, maybe I’ll build something that will eventually appear in one of your future books.

Anyway thank you! Not only for helping me, but for creating a ray of hope for others in this place.

Shalom aleichem,

JZ