wilding

Photo: Arts & Architecture

I’ve seen all the wild rivers I ever want to see.

Floyd E. Dominy in 1966. Dominy, who served as the commissioner of the federal Bureau of Reclamation from 1959 to 1969, passed away on April 20 at the age of 100.

According to the New York Times, Dominy was responsible for the “Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge and Navajo Dams in the upper Colorado River basin, and the Trinity River part of California’s Central Valley Project, among many others.”

I don’t think I would have gotten along with Dominy (may he RIP), even though there's every reason to believe that he did what he did out of a humanitarian impulse to help the farmer and rancher of the American West.

Unfortunately, he overdid it.

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is more my style. He recently did a spot for American Express in which he talked about his dam busting.

Video: Yvon Chouinard and the American Express Members Project Commercial

The July / August 1967 (and final) issue of Arts & Architecture was dedicated to the architecture of North American dams. The photograph above was taken from that issue, as was this excerpt:

It could be said that water is one of the most potent forces employed by Nature in shaping the animate and inanimate world, and as a form creator is thus within our province.

(...)

It is of importance to note just how far man has progressed in his ability to form and deform his environment. Like water, he is both form giver and destroyer, but until quite recently man was one of Nature’s relatively minor and inefficient tools and weapons.

By his inventiveness and increase in numbers, however, he has become capable of changing the face and fortune of the world beyond the capacity of any other natural force. An indication of his increased capability is the catastrophic affect man has had on water in the U.S. It is estimated, for example, that is he were to disappear tomorrow, it would take a generation for the waters of even our largest rivers and lakes (e.g. the Hudson River, Lake Erie) to regenerate and become fresh again.

Water Resources in North America, Arts & Architecture, July / August 1967

Update: NPR reported on Dominy on May 4th »

just in time

The prostitute ads in the Brazilian phone booth? Those are just names, probably fake names, coupled with real cellphone numbers -- lending to Chipchase’s theory that in an increasingly transitory world, the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity.

Sara Corbett writing on human-centered designer Jan Chipchase’s work for Nokia, in Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty? in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

Great piece, but then I’m partial to human-centered design.

Corbett also writes of meeting up with the designer somewhere in Accra:

From an unseen distance, Chipchase used his phone to pilot me through the unfamiliar chaos, allowing us to have what he calls a “just in time” moment. ... My “just in time” meeting with Chipchase required little in the way of advance planning and was more efficient than the oft-imperfect practice of designating a specific time and place to rendezvous. He didn’t have to leave his work until he knew I was in the vicinity. ... And now, on foot, if I moved in the wrong direction, it could be quickly corrected.

I was tempted back in December to blog a “just in time” meeting I had with a buddy of mine while in Denver. I refrained, because I thought that it probably wouldn’t crack anyone else up the way it cracked me up, but now that Chipchase has granted it respectability -- and a name -- I figured, what the hell.

The thread was exchanged via handheld devices with email support. Names have been omitted to protect me from a libel suite.

hoo: ping me when you're free -- we'll triangulate based on our current locations. :)

him: I'm meeting some old friends for breakfast at Davies at 11:00. After that I'm free. What do you want to do? I had considered going to the art museum. I'm not a huge art museum guy, but - haven't been there since they built the new building.

hoo: new dam is definitely worth taking a look at.

time passes

him: I'll be free in about 30 min.

hoo: DAM then -- headed there now. I'll be at the coffee bar, partaking. :)

time passes

hoo: frickin' HUGE line up to get in. standing there instead. hopefully done with it by the time you get here.

time passes

him: Very slow start. Leaving Lakewood now.

hoo: no worries -- still standing in line.

MUCH time passes. Line was VERY long. This next bit of the thread has been lost: It involved some back and forth re whether I should pick up tickets for the special exhibit or just grab us some general admission tix.

him: Have free passes for museum but not special exhibit. I'll go for whatever you want to see.

hoo: you mean I could have been drinking coffee all this time?!?!

I've been in line so long I feel like I need to see this through, just on principle... I'm near the front so go ahead and cut the line and come into the building when you get here.

I'm tall. you'll find me. ;)

time passes

him: I see it.

hoo: sitting right inside the door. resting from my ordeal.

time passes

him: New or old building? I'm parked.

hoo: new. WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE ARE.

him: OH

hoo: :-{[}

time passes

him: North or south of colfax?

hoo: south.

more time passes

him: So do I have to wait through that line too, or do you have me set up?

For what it’s worth, once all parties were found, the visit, to Daniel Libeskind's new wing of the Denver Art Museum, ranked as one of the best museum visits of the year, mostly because of the good company, even though the special exhibit wasn't worth the price of admission.

And I never did get my coffee.