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Rob Giampietro in Quote Unquote

Feb 27, 2016

The postmodern attitude

I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her “I love you madly,” because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still there is a…

Rob Giampietro in Quote Unquote

Jan 7, 2016

The origins of Dymaxion

Fuller’s favorite neologism, “dymaxion,” was concocted purely for
public relations. When Marshall Field’s displayed his model house, it
wanted a catchy label, so it hired a consultant, who fashioned
“dymaxion” out of bits of “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “ion.” Fuller was so
taken with the…

Rob Giampietro in Quote Unquote

Jan 2, 2016

So much more than the world could offer

When we pick up our newspaper at breakfast, we expect — we even demand — that it bring us momentous events since the night before. We turn on the car radio as we drive to work and expect “news” to have occurred since the morning newspaper went to press…

Rob Giampietro in Quote Unquote

Dec 23, 2015

The spectral mimicry of things said to the mind

“The shabby-suited fellow at the front door was a Fuller Brush salesman.” The rhythm of the sentence not only propels the sentence forward, it helps to organize its significant units — its phrases and clauses. The reader is made, not merely to see…

Rob Giampietro in Quote Unquote

Dec 16, 2015

Rewilding

Dubbed Rewilding Europe, the movement takes the old notion of wilderness and turns it inside out. Perhaps it’s true that genuine wilderness can only be destroyed, but new “wilderness,” what the Dutch call “new nature,” can be created. Every year, tens of thousands of acres of economically marginal farmland in…

Rob Giampietro in Quote Unquote

Dec 5, 2015

On sliminess

At this instant I suddenly understand the snare of the slimy: it is a fluidity which holds me and which comprises me; I can not slide on this slime, all its suction cups hold me back; it can not slide over me, it clings to me like a leech. The sliding however is not simply denied as in the case of the…