Riding the Shockwave

Posted on 2026-03-07 by Hal

“…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.

Scott Kemp interview collaborative design

Posted on 2026-02-12 by Hal

This is mostly to provide links for myself.

Anyway… Dami Lee has a great interview with Scott Kemp, and his design process with First Nations throughout British Columbia. What’s notable, to me, is not only how this creates good buildings, but it appears to emulate processes recommended by Christopher Alexander. Just a really, really interesting interview all around.

Minkin, Playing with Money

Posted on 2026-02-09 by Hal

Back to Gumperstown. The bank. “What’s my balance? I think I’m overdrawn.” Foxes to the right of him, foxes to the left of him. Goddamn branch hires tellers the way restaurants hire waitresses. Sell some tit with the sausages to stimulate appetites, better tips, return trade. But a bank?

“You’re not OD’d.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You’re not overdrawn. This is your balance.” She passed him a slip of paper that read $126.23.

“Absolutely ridiculous, madam. I haven’t had that much in there in months. Why do I give you my money to play with?”

Lexicon. I usually rephrase as, “Why do I let you people play with my money?”

From Stephen Minkin’s excellent 1979 novel about play (“Ludics”), and Northern California in the late ‘70s, A No Doubt Mad Idea.

Function follows form

Posted on 2026-01-22 by Hal

That is, well designed buildings/cities/what-have-you will encourage positive events. Poorly designed, the reverse.

And so, a reason (among many, but still) for the crazy history since… Adolf Loos? “Ornament and crime.” (.PDF)

Austen, Company

Posted on 2026-01-17 by Hal

“My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

“You are mistaken,” said he gently, “that is not good company; that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.”

Jane Austen, Persuasion

Bedford Quarry House

Posted on 2023-12-27 by Hal

The Bedford Quarry House, by architect Steven Harris:

(If that’s blurry, it’s probably because it’s a screen capture.)

Overall — and I know this is very much a science fiction reader’s observation — the house reminds me of the one in City, by Clifford Simak. On the edge of a quarry that’s been allowed to start filling with water, benevolent noise provided by a waterfall.

Here’s a video with an interview featuring Mr. Harris

“We are in the waiting business.”

Posted on 2023-08-06 by Hal

When we visited Vienna/Wien in 2015, it coincided with diplomatic talks about Syria, at the Hotel Imperial. These were the first talks Iran deigned to attend, so the atmosphere was quite hopeful that progress could be made.

We were in the hotel’s Café Imperial when I overheard that line from the distinguished gentleman above, presumably in one delegation or another. If you recognize the image, it’s because yes, this is the source for one of my banners.

Chaucer’s Salons

Posted on 2023-04-16 by Hal

From a long-time favorite novel, Steven Minkin’s A No Doubt Mad Idea:

“On to the library. And all through his time at the card catalog, combing the shelves, filling out the request cards, he danced a silent, flirtatious minuet of the eyes with a rosy-cheeked redhead in the biology section, pages of notes spread before her. All his life, he had had a yen for women in libraries. In a cerebral setting, the physical becomes irresistible. Also, he figured he was really more likely to meet a better or at least more compatible woman in a library than in a saloon. Ought to have singles libraries, with soups and salads, Bach and Mozart, Montaignes bound in morocco; place to sip, smoke, and seduce in a classical setting, noon to midnight. Chaucer’s Salons, call them, franchise chain.”

Reflecting in the dark

Posted on 2023-02-23 by Hal

This is a nighttime photograph, by Nancy Matoba, of the soon-to-open Little Tokyo subway station in LA. It’s of the above-ground plaza used by the station at 1st & Alameda, the approximate location of where the Atomic Cafe was, and shows the very large mural commemorating it on a stainless steel building that has a staircase and an elevator. (Compare the mural to the elevator doors for size.) The image of the Cafe at night used for the top two-thirds of the mural was made by me; the bottom third is explanatory text. You won’t even need to go underground to the rest of the station to see it. I’m proud to join the landscape of LA, and humbled to pay tribute to the place and the Matoba family this way.

(All praise and thanks to Nancy’s daughter, Zen Sekizawa, for finding my photo online in the first place, and her tireless efforts seeing this project through with Metro. Zen first mentioned this idea to me in March, 2018, showing how the wheels of government grind slowly, and exceedingly fine.)

And the original image, from my photo portfolio site:

The Man Who Planted Trees…

Posted on 2023-02-10 by Hal

This video is 30 minutes long, but worth it. The text version is here. I first read it long ago, either in Co-Evolution Quarterly, or in one of the editions of the Whole Earth Catalog. I had an idea of establishing a fund at Midland to do something similar over all of campus, but like many of my ideas, nothing came of it.

Hal O'Brien 🇺🇸🇸🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴‍☠️

So many neurons, so little time.

Category Archives: Conviviality