College Basketball Hall of Famer, Olympic Champion, NBA great and Jazz and Gospel Artist Wayman Tisdale succombs to cancer and dies at the age of 44.

The Complete Works 1943 - 1959

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was one of the fathers of modern architecture; his work helped define the modern era, had a widespread cultural influence, and remains highly influential today, half a century after his demise.

Part of an exhaustive three-volume monograph featuring all of Wright’s 1,100 designs, both realized and unrealized. This volume covers the postwar years and the “living architecture” period, starting in 1943, when Wright’s organic “living architecture” introduced ideas for the use of solar energy and curved open spaces. In addition to many private projects and the Guggenheim museum, the period up to 1959 includes Wright’s astonishing plans for a new Baghdad, his only realized high-rise tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the crystal figure of the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Pennsylvania, and plans for an endless row of houses with floor plans based on hexagons.

The book is authored by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, a vice-president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and the author of numerous publications on Wright’s life and work) and edited by Peter Gössel. Originally scheduled for release this month (May 2009), the release date has been pushed back until July 2009.  The publisher, TASCHEN, has a great Leaf Through! option on their website.

How sweet and happy seem those days of which I dream,
When memory recalls them now and then!
And with what rapture sweet my weary heart would beat,
If I could hear my mother pray again.

• Refrain:
  If I could hear my mother pray again,
  If I could hear her tender voice as then!
  So glad I’d be, ’twould mean so much to me,
  If I could hear my mother pray again.

She used to pray that I on Jesus would rely,
And always walk the shining gospel way;
So trusting still His love, I seek that home above,
Where I shall meet my mother some glad day.
Within the old home-place her patient, smiling face
Was always spreading comfort, hope and cheer;
And when she used to sing to her eternal King,
It was the songs the angels loved to hear.
Her work on earth is done, the life-crown has been won,
And she will be at rest with Him above;
And some glad morning she, I know, will welcome me
To that eternal home of peace and love.

Lyrics by John Whitfield “Whit” Vaughan (1879-1945)

When I was a kid it was hard, nearly impossible, for my mom to get out of the grocerry store without my begging to stop at the row of vending machines.  I was always able to get my fix of bubble gum, jawbreakers and those little eggs with toys inside that didn’t last to the car.

Times have changed and while I still have a fascination with vending machines, the offerings have expanded greatly!  Below are five of my favorites.

Cars & Condos

Bike Dispenser

Medicinal Marijuana

Reverse Vending (Recycling)

Video Games

When I named this blog Vene, Vidi, Voce — I Came, I Saw, I’ve Got to Tell You About It, this was the type of post I had in mind.   A web site that I just stumbled upon (I can say that without infringing any copyrights, can’t I?) has rocketed to becoming my favorite site and my first check in the morning.  The site is Daily Icon Magazine.  It is a beautiful site covering architecture, design, fine gadgets, exotic foods and travel.  I will let the site speak for itself below and when you click and check it out.

Daily Icon Magazine features profiles of extraordinary Designers, Architecture and Products, with a special focus on furniture, accessories and lighting for the home. Dedicated to unearthing emerging and established talent and sharing inspiring design solutions. The format is simple: lots of images, carefully edited.

In addition, regular weekly posts feature:

Monday – Archicon
Every week we feature on an Architecture Icon, from the early days of modernism to the present.

Tuesday – Interiors
From Abidjan to Zürich, the best in domestic and commercial interiors

Wednesday – Living Icon
Major contributors to design — people (past, present or future) who have changed, or will change, the course of design as we know it.

Thursday – Design Icon
A single product or design that has had a direct and lasting impact on our culture, either though design, function or meaning.

Friday – Food & Travel
Out of the way destinations, and some of the most creative hotels, restaurants and cutting edge ideas in cuisine, as well as current trends in packaging.

Saturday – Books
A well stocked library is essential — designer monographs, photography and architecture, each carefully selected to inspire.

Sunday – Rest
All the rest: photography, art, eclecticism, and all the things that life offers.

Over the last few years I have bought and sold items via craigslist from a magazine to a sportscar. I am a bonafide Craigslist.org fanatic and with over 40 million users each month it is clear I am not alone.

Craigslist has become one of the most diverse social networking and classified ad sites on the Internet. It is a place to find roommates, romance, furniture, jobs and lively debates. While the vast majority of users are interested in honest commerce and conversation, there are numerous cases of the site being used for a host of illegal activities, including prostitution, robbery, identity theft, fraud and now it seems even serial murder.

Boston Police say the man they believe murdered an aspiring actress Julissa Brisman, 26, at the Copley Marriott in Boston two days ago may also be responsible for other attacks on women, (one possibly last night in Rhode Island) and that he possibly met them through their advertisements on Craigslist.

It is too easy to blame the site for what it cannot control. The overwhelming majority of craigslist users are trustworthy and well-intentioned. But, most are strangers and we all remember what we learned as children “there are dangers in strangers”. Craigslist offers the following advice for your safety:

With billions of human interactions facilitated through craigslist, the incidence of violent crime has been extremely low.

Nevertheless, it’s very important to take the same common sense precautions online as you would offline. When meeting someone for the first time, please remember to:

• Insist on a public meeting place like a cafe
• Tell a friend or family member where you’re going
• Take your cell phone along if you have one
• Consider having a friend accompany you
• Trust your instincts

Taking these simple precautions will help make craigslist safer for everyone.

People of the Interweb, today we have done something extraordinarily special.  We have shown the world that the new way is here, it’s present and it’s ready to explore…   -Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher joined a race to outrun CNN to reach 1,000,000 followers on Twitter, and he won. Early in the morning on April 17, 2009, Ashton tweeted “Victory is ours!” meaning that he managed to get one million followers before CNN. Although CNN now has more than one million followers, Kutcher’s Aplusk was the first to get there.

Twitter cannot be more popular than this as everybody wants more followers. Today Oprah will post her first tweet live on TV, and the world will go crazy about Twitter.

The Arizona State University is  being granted the honor of having Barack Obama, the president of the United States, give its commencement address, and has decided not to award President Obama an honorary degree, as is the tradition for graduation day speakers.

ASU Media Relations Director Sharon Keeler says, unlike other universities, the processes for selecting commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients are independent. She says that honorary degrees are given “for an achievement of eminence” and that Obama was not considered for an honorary degree because his body of achievements, at this time, does not fit within that criteria.

So are we to understand that getting elected president of the United States, not to mention the first African-American president, is NOT “an achievement of eminence”.

Are you kidding ASU?

After all, as the Phoenix-area’s East Valley Tribune editorialized:

Barry Goldwater received his honorary degree in May 1961, three years before his Republican nomination for president and only eight years into his three decades as a U.S. senator. Sandra Day O’Connor was similarly recognized just three years in her 25 years on the U.S. Supreme Court.

This just smells bad. Especially mixed in with the garbage from two decades ago, when Arizona refused to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. Put’s me in mind of that annoying garbage bag commercial:

STINKY! STINKY! STINKY!

Falling Water via www.wright-house.com

Will T.C. Boyle’s new novel, The Women, and Nancy Horan’s novel, Loving Frank—both about Frank Lloyd Wright and the women in his life—boost interest in Wright’s architecture and visits to the houses he designed? Perhaps, but Wright’s buildings are hardly hurting for visitors.

Wright’s Fallingwater house, which Time magazine declared his “most beautiful job” shortly after it was completed in 1937, has seen millions of visitors over the years. Located 50 miles from Pittsburgh, it’s worthy of adoration, spanning a waterfall and still somehow blending nearly seamlessly into the landscape. By all accounts, it was the inspiration for Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. The New Yorker once called it “Wright’s extraordinary essay in horizontal space.”

See it now: The house is open to visitors six days a week from mid-March through Thanksgiving.

Architecture connoisseurs have another option. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust is offering an All-Access Fallingwater tour April 25-28. It takes in the Fallingwater house and other highlights of Pittsburgh-area architecture, including a couple of Lloyd Wright-designed Usonian homes, Kentuck Knob and the Duncan House. At $1,795, which includes accommodations in a four-star hotel, it’s not cheap, but it could be well worth it for Wright aficionados. They get more time than the average visitor to explore the house—especially the dramatic living room.

“It’s the first room you enter and it’s over the falling water,” the Preservation Trust’s Patti Bigelow told me. “There’s almost like this glass enclosure you can roll back and then there’s a staircase that goes down to the waterfall. It’s everyone’s first awe experience once they get inside the home.”

via Jim Benning, the cofounder and coeditor of World Hum.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s death. Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle has proclaimed today as “Frank Lloyd Wright Remembrance Day in Wisconsin, in memory of Wisconsin’s most famous son.”

Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500 completed works.

Wright promoted organic architecture, was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture, and developed the concept of the Usonian home. His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types, including offices, churches, schools, hotels, and museums. Wright also often designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass.

Wright authored 20 books and many articles, and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. His colorful personal life often made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire and murders at his Taliesin studio.

Already well-known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as “the greatest American architect of all time”

Wright on the Web