“…so who was to believe that some crazy mix composed of bits of Ghiradelli and Portmeirion and Valencia and Taliesin and God knows what besides would turn out right when everything else went wrong?”

— John K.H. Brunner, The Shockwave Rider

So there I was, a freshman at Pomona College, in Claremont, Calif. I read that passage, and I really want to figure out what those four sources were. I’ve cheated — I’ve linked them so you can look. But back in those days of 1982 there was no way to do any retrieval in a similar way.

so, down to our monster, Honnold Library I went. I started flipping through the library cards under SUBJECT : ARCHITECTURE. I found a big under the A’s. 1200 some-odd pages. Author by the name of Alexander. I’m lazy, but surely a book that big would point me somewhere. It did. It sent me down the rabbit hole. Didn’t answer the question at all, but oh, what a journey it’s sent me through the years.

A Pattern Language.

Which is why I’ve always felt indebted to Brunner. It wasn’t intentional — but I’ve had fun.