things i am reading

i seem to be a verb
by r. buckminster fuller

i had never heard of this book before i found it by accident at the JBU library on monday. because of this, i feel as if i have a little treasure. when i showed my roommate the book he was very excited to see the author. r. buckminster fuller i guess he is a big deal. i think it would be safe to say that 'i seem to be a verb' is one of the first books to marry image and text compositely as rhetoric. it's kind of like a book version of adbusters, except published in 1970. every page is halved by a running marquee so that the page is separated into two blocks of text. the bottom block is upside down so that when you finish the book you have to return to it upside. i like to think that this was so that other people across from you could read with you if you were in a bus or in some other public place. the books follows a very subtle flow of thought so that the images evolve into the text on the next page or vice versa. this seems fitting since evolution is a theme in the book. much of the text is made up of quotes from dr. fuller himself as well as quotes from various public icons such as stanley kubrick, abbie hoffman, marx, and even charlie brown. the quotes all mostly allude to the future in language, art, social programs in the industrialization of mankind but also a kind of spiritual revolution where competition, nationality, and economics will be eliminated.

here are some good quotes:

'the intellectual integrity and infinite order of the universe obviously are greater than man. man is an invention within it. what one did about this understanding would have to be through design. i decided i must not be a persuader, but a doer.'

'all animals, except man, adapt according to the environment. man changes his environment, making it adapt to him.'

'i live on earth at present, and i don't know what i am. i know that i am not a category. i am not a thing--a noun. i seem to be a verb, and evolutionary process--an integral function of the universe.'

'every child is interested in the universe. his questions are universal--and usually impossible or hard to answer. development of specialization has been either the result of 'forced feeding' or inbred talent; two musician parents tend to produce musician children'

he says some things that make me nervous, like about how cool automation and industrialization is but it is maybe kind of balanced when he says things like the government is spending more money 'educating' computers than educating children. the front cover describes the book as 'environment and man's future--by the visionary genius of our time.' this book was published in 1970. i want to say it was 'ahead of its time' but i feel that i don't feel like that is really important. i do feel like the book is just regular important, especially now when we are living in an time where our actions upon the environment have a direct and immediate consequence upon ourselves and our descendants. this book is an easy read and i recommend it.