Kent – Page 116 – Kent Fackenthall

Wrapped Reichstag

Was reading an article online that referenced this art installation Wrapped Reichstag, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude from 1995. I’d never heard of it so searched it up. I find the studies and models leading up to the installation fascinating. It’s impressive how in the final installation, the fabric actually accentuates the architectural features of the building and the contrast of the wrapped structure with the area and other structures around it is sublime.

The planning and design of the fabric panels and rope layout to achieve the desired contours and texture is so well executed and is so much more interesting when I saw the studies and pictures vs. the image that popped into my head when I imagined a ‘building wrapped in fabric’.

To the 5 Boroughs

For the most part any non-paved trails or trails in the woods are still snow-covered. The roads and shoulders are in terrible shape. Wet, crumbling, full of potholes. So we do ‘road’ bike rides on our mountain bikes this time of year. Doesn’t ruin your road bike, you don’t spend all your time fixing flats in skinny tires and, the most enjoyable benefit, when you find a big long, muddy dirt or gravel road, you can see where it goes.

My compatriot Mr. T. and I had a rough idea of a route to visit 5 neighborhoods local to us. Our ‘homage’ to the Beasties record, if you will, check it out.

Carl Sagan, Soothsayer

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995