I came across this the other day when cleaning out old files. It’s a font from an IBM Selectric Composer, a $9,000 souped-up IBM Selectric typewriter, which was used for typesetting in the ’60s and ’70s. It was the step in between linotype (hot lead) and the Macintosh. There was a different ball for each typeface, and when you wanted to switch from roman (plain) type to italic, you changed the font. The Composer was used by Stewart Brand for the Whole Earth Catalog and then by us for Shelter and our subsequent books up until the early 90s, when we switched to the MacIntosh.

I’ve been contacted 3-4 times by TV producers regarding tiny homes. Each time I’ve felt that they weren’t searching for the reality of the subject, but trying to shoehorn something into a phony story line. Reality shows are bad enough, but pre-determined phony reality is worse. Here’s a good article on the subject: http://rockymountaintinyhouses.com/the-truth-about-tiny-house-tv-shows/ 

“…The crew shows up to tiny house build in progress. The customers are in over their heads. They need the house finished in two weeks. They need these super cool expensive features in order to meet their needs. Their budget is a completely unattainable, $30,000. Trucks get stuck, storms roll in, vendors miss deliveries, old wood bridges threaten to fall into the river, the house tries to roll off a cliff…Somehow in the end it all comes together and the people are left with their dream tiny house. Folks, this just isn’t how it works.…”

-Greg Parham, Rocky Mountain Tiny Houses

We recently got this press release. I haven’t seen the show, so don’t know what it’s like.

They’re looking for people who are about to build and live in a tiny home. If you contact them, let us know the outcome.

Contact them here:

https://www.dorseypictures.tv/

Three to four years ago, I did a lot more writing of posts than I do now. These days I’m working on other digital forms of communication (takes time) as well as our old school hold-in-your-hands treasures called books, and in the midst of writing, photographing, editing, and laying out our next major book, Small Homes.

Once in a while I like to slip in a post as of the old days. Can we talk?

It’s been raining like mad. Marin county reservoirs are spilling over. Shasta Lake, NorCal’s big one, is at 81% now—a welcome relief after all the sad years of bare banks. Went out a few days ago with friends to see cascading waterfalls; power of our magic mountain. Toots: “Love the Rain”: 

Small Homes, Our Next Book

The book is growing daily. It’s a lot like gardening. I am having a lot of back-and-forth emails with builder/contributors, often in search of large enough photo files. (What works on a monitor won’t work in high-quality printing.) I’m over half-way through, doing layout with a 5-year-old Brother color copy machine, scissors and scotch tape before they go to Rick for InDesign/Photoshop precision, enhancement, and preparation for our printers in Hong Kong. You can see 17 sneak previews here: https://www.theshelterblog.com/?s=preview

Scotland Shelter Exhibition

There is a festival of architecture in Scotland now, sponsored by the Fife Contemporary Arts Center. It’s called “Shelters,” and features an entire room exhibiting our work, with photo and page blowups, and our building books on tables (below). It’s open now at the Kircaldy Galleries (Kircaldy is about 12 miles north of Edinburgh, on the east coast of Scotland) and runs through June 5, 2016.

I’ll be doing a slide show presentation on May 10th, at Kircaldy Galleries, titled “50 Years of Natural Building,” chronicling our building books from Shelter in 1973 up to the present.

The Shelter Blog

We have finally increased the amount of original material on our blog (as opposed to mostly references to material already posted elsewhere). Check it out: https://www.theshelterblog.com/. Note: when you go looking for it, you need to type in the “the” to get the correct URL. If you type in “shelterblog,” it will go to the wrong place.

Driftwood Shacks: Anonymous Architecture Along the California Coast

My first ever art exhibit; I’m pretty excited to be doing this. On display will be about 24 of my photos, shot on various northern California beaches over the last 15 years. At the Bolinas Museum, opening reception April 2, 2016, 3-5 PM, 38 Wharf Road, Bolinas, Calif

https://www.bolinasmuseum.org/calendar.html

Healing Broken Bones (and Injuries)

(Of interest only to people with injuries.) My broken wrist (skateboarding) is maybe 80% healed (hmm, Shasta 81%, wrist 80%—all to the good!). I explored a lot of modalities, including comfrey (also called “knitbone”), calcium citrate, bone broth, prunes and bananas (yes!), marijuana patches and salves, stretching, and wrist braces. Info on my previous posts (including over 30 comments here: https://www.lloydkahn.com/2015/12/20/did-i-say-i-was-going-to-give-up/ and I’ll soon be doing a special post updating the methods for hastening healing. (I did a lot of research.)

45 Years of Publishing

I can’t believe it. I’m 80, and have never been busier or more productive in my life—and in an extraordinary profession full of wonderful, intelligent people. I don’t even mind all the email and business stuff, but I love shooting photos, doing layout, and especially having the chance to do an exhibit of my photos.

For some years I was really into blogging. These days I post a lot less, what with doing Instagram, contributing to theshelterblog, Tumblr, Twitter, and reluctantly, Facebook. A blizzard of internet activity.

The idea is to get our “content” out in digital form to compliment our publishing of hold-in-your-hands books. All this with “build it and they will come” approach. We’re working at having theshelterblog be more and more of our original material as opposed to stuff already on the web.

We’ve also upgraded our website in the process.

I’m also posting less because I’m immersed in production of our next book, Small Homes. Which is looking, ahem, incredibly good. This may end up being our most relevant building book ever, with a variety of simple homes and lifestyles that will give lots of people ideas and inspiration to create their own shelters.

Sure, tiny homes are wonderful and photogenic and a welcome relief from homes that are too big and expensive and rents that are too high. But small homes are relevant for way more people.

So far we’ve done 97 (out of approx. 200) pages. A sample we just completed today:

So onward I go with the book, posting less. But hey, 5000 posts is a body of work (along with all time history page views of 7,448,979)…