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Brand and his projects were a considerable influence upon me. Viewed from an English provincial town, 50s/60s California seemed the smartest place on Earth. The energy there was going into innovation, whereas in England it was going into overturning the Establishment - the strangled innovation bit came later (white heat of technology).

Working in CA for the first time in '68, it seemed to me that that flowering - if it ever existed - was over. Because my wonderful picture of California had been so selective. What I thought was a revolution was only an infinitesimal part of the State culture.

If I had to choose a place today (using the same selectivity), I would choose Uudenmaa - the southern state of Finland. If quasi-Rawlsian ethics and Qualitativism are 2 things we stand for, then they stand for Uudenmaa too.

Disclaimer: the state is a sometime client of mine.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Oct 2nd, 2010 at 12:11:36 PM EST
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i didn't get to Ca till 75, and it was still jumping with alternativity, though the bloom was definitely off the haight st rose, and 'wasted' stopped being a euphemism and became a description.

still the can-do thing was jamming, there was an immensely freer, more playful energy in the air than  ever seen in england. europe seemed mired in narcissistic cerebrality, endless smoky discussion about zombie ideologies and murky loyalties...

the whole earth catalogue crystallised everything admirable about america then.

the west coast has always had an intense counterculture, to match the equally intense military industrial complex entrenched there.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sat Oct 2nd, 2010 at 03:01:32 PM EST
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