Hello World,

Travis Herb is my name and The Talent are ye denizenry of risibleARCHITECTURE .

That’s ThatT.

Thatt is a mostly bygone spelling, emphasizing the precision, certainty, very architecture of a thing. Behold: thatt has two t’s together like posts and a lintel—an even more primary architectural principle than the arch itself. Between them is hat, the most primal architecture of all. Thatt and boots, according to Mr. Wright.

Now denizenry is only a real word if you honor Cormac McCarthy his right to coin a few. I do. He was an architect of language.

The cantina was a single room and there was a hole in the ceiling where a trunk of sunlight fell through onto the mud floor and figures crossing the room steered with care past the edge of this column of light as if it might be hot to the touch. They were a hardbit denizenry and they shambled to the bar and back in their rags and skins like cavefolk exchanging at some nameless trade. (Blood Meridian-1985)

The realism in his works is brutal as architecture. Realism is a polite way to speak of the brutal truth without riling up people’s sacred cows. With truth comes unyielding consequences and we naked apes prefer to play make-believe at the beach than to abide in our abodes. At the beach, the consequences of our actions are quickly washed away. There we easily put aside our limitless appetite for wealth and power and our limitless despair at never having enough. At the beach we forget all that in a riot of fearless play.

No sand is harmed during beach-ball. At the beach, consequences are just lines in the sand. Quickly washed away. Architecture is the opposite. Architecture is consequence codified and crystalized.

We are as cetaceans. We are always coming home to the sea. We just keep forgetting! Instead, we get caught up in works of risibleARCHITECTURE. The way of architecture is a spiritual crucible like the Ox-Hearding analogy of Buddhism or the Odyssey or Stations of the Cross. The goal is to perfect and then vacate your hard won architecture as much as possible.

It’s a cosmic joke, to be sure and it is a cruel joke for many. Even the wealthy are prone to suffering a life of architectural dissatisfaction. But it can be done right and really, there is no choice. It is what we were born to done as creatures of design.

Architecture is not a pile of stuff. It is the space created by that pile of stuff. Architecture is cultural infrastructure and a culture is an Art of Living. During the growing pains of modern times the culture of no-culture has become the dominant culture. How risible is thatt? Fortunately science and technology will continue to keep us on life support for the foreseeable future even as the quality of life supported continues to degrade as the pathologically extreme pluralism of no-culture rages on.

On the other side, shoots and spindly trunks of emergent culture are everywhere. Most will be munched away by sacred cows or washed away for want of architecture. And some will no-doubt survive. What a tremendous time to learn architecture!

Personally I feel very fortunate to have found a rich culture I can trust in at an early age. This art of living goes by the name Dhamma and it is about 25 centuries old. It is an anti-institutional institution so you won’t find leaders and facilities of Dhamma unless they are spin-offs, of which there are many. Buddhism itself is a spin-off of Dhamma. Stoicism may also have roots in Dhamma as is evidenced by the similar call to an “art of living” and an emphatically scientific realism.

I was introduced to Dhamma on an intensive t0-day seminar during spring break of my first year in college. It’s been a quarter century since then and my suspicions about it have proven unwarranted. It is not a religious cult in disguise. There isn’t a secret hierarchy of inner-circle conspirators. There really is no business behind it nor anyone getting rich off of it. It is definitely not a Manchurian candidate program, like I really thought it might be at first. The training is so intensive it can feel like you’re being trained to be a spy but I think any serious art training can feel that way for a time. Dhamma is an art of living and an architecture supporting this art.

As a culture it is bare-bones but in this post-postmodern era, bare-bones is refreshing. There is no music or painting or dance or even literature integral to Dhamma. On the contrary, beginners are warned to stay away from any associated arts until fully established in Vipassana, which is the principal art of Dhamma. Vipassana is quite challenging as is any art form. Rather than beat ourselves up over it, we are encouraged to give it a few tries and then, if it doesn’t take, find some other art form to get into. The important thing is to pick one and go to the depth. It is in mastery and praxis that the rewards of a fully realized human life are to be found.

Once established in an art form, all sorts of cultural things become more wonderful than ever. Sectarian and non-sectarian stuff become more available for inspiration and satisfaction to the artist. War, empathy and sympathetic joy all have their beauty. Death becomes sublime. Birth becomes ecstatic and frequent. The calendar becomes thick with playful events. Money is no longer an object but rather, a design.

We need serious and continuous practice before all this can happen and to practice we need our own private zedi. This is a little practice dome of perfect climate and privacy year round. They were popular in the ancient times of northern India. But practice is hard and people will typically choose the simulacrum of practice whenever possible. There are few zedis in India now because they were filled in with sacred bones and such, decorated elaborately and turned into religious shrines.

Practice is only hard until it becomes a habit. Then, like a dog begging for a walk, our practices become some of the best parts of our day. Then our days fly by in a bliss of productivity until strangely, they don’t again. We are as onions. Layer after layer of development is necessary and who knows how far this goes. Se keep our practices honed by praxis in preparation for that boundary layer of new grown, when a new set of practices are required. Without architecture, there isn’t much hope of success. We need zedis to keep growing and developing and every day, start again.

Start again.

Know what you want and name it love.

Do that, attract people who get it.

Make a family. Build a home. Get some kids and give them zedis.

Repeat.

risibleARCHITECTURE is here to guide and inspire.



Blood Meridian