Dare to Be Naive

Rule #1 of a Monday night: never miss a chance to hear from the friend of a Renaissance man.

With it being Restaurant Week, we needed to find someplace far from the madding crowds and Garnett's fit the bill perfectly.

There were only two other tables occupied and Patsy Cline was on the stereo so we decided to go the date night route.

We toyed with the idea of an Italian but instead chose French, a fresh and fruity Calmel + JJoseph Saint Chinon, a Syrah and Grenache Noir blend.

While enjoying our meal, our server opened a bakery box to show another customer the chocolate almond torte inside.

One look at that dark chocolate ganache and I inquired, "Is that for public consumption?"

Affirmative.

How could we not try a new sweet at Garnett's, one of our favorite dessert spots?

Impossible.

But with limited time and art awaiting us, we took it to go along with the rest of our wine.

University of Richmond was calling with a lecture and art opening at the Modlin Center.

The new exhibit "Buckminster Fuller, Inventions: Twelve Around One" was opening with a talk by long-time friend and architectural partner to Fuller, Thomas Zung.

I'd heard it from a reliable source that he "liked to talk" and frankly, I was curious to hear stories from a man who intimately knew someone as passionate and multi-talented as Bucky.

Zung was both enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Bucky and his never-ending quest to solve the problems of housing, transportation,, education, ecology and just about every other worthwhile cause you could name.

The talk included pictures of Fuller's Dymaxion cars, with Zung commenting, "In the '30s, it was astounding to see Bucky's car coming down the road compared to all the other cars."

Considering it looked like a three-wheeled wingless plane, I guess it did.

I loved that Zung's talk included audio clips of Bucky talking and even singing "Home, Sweet, Home" with his own lyrics, like "Home, home to a dome."

Before one of the film clips of Bucky's cars, Zung chuckled, "I don't know if any of you heard Bucky talk, but when he gave a talk for an hour, it lasted about five."

What struck me was Bucky's belief in what one man can do. "Think for yourself and just do it," was a goal he attacked every day of his life.

Black Mountain College in North Carolina, that hotbed of artistic talent (John Cage, Merce Cunningham, de Kooning, Martha Graham), was referred to by Zung as " a poor man's Paris."

The metaphor is brilliant and believable.

Naturally, we saw images of Bucky's geodesic domes, probably his best-known creations.

But the exhibit made it clear that the man was so much more than just domes.

Perhaps the most compelling was his Dymaxion world map, the first map to show land masses with minimal distortion and the ocean as one body of water.

Fascinated, I could have looked at that all day.

A series of drawings for various projects would have made a comic book artist proud with their deft shading and intricate detail.

His "rowing needle" looked like a cross between a rowboat and a catamaran, a sleek apparatus that took up the whole back area of the gallery, a perfect example of form following function.

I heard that Zing had wanted to demonstrate it, but there hadn't been sufficient time to get it to water.

Too bad. That's something I'd have wanted to see.

Bucky called himself a comprehensivist, someone who works with whole systems. In other words, an artist.

And he was definitely that, in addition to being an engineer, an architect, an inventor and a poet.

I'm not sure I knew we had any 20th century Renaissance men until tonight.

Because surely it is only a man who is interested in so much who would say, "Don't try to make me consistent. I am learning all the time."

Amen, Bucky. I'm right there with you.

P.S. I already nailed the naive part.