12 July 2024

Remembering Bucky from Bellevue

In anticipation of sunsight at Bellevue, from 6am, distant thunder resonated as if to remind of global conflicts perhaps from Ukraine or Gaza, while we felt for a better shared world as inspired by Bucky. The informal gathering of friends came to inaugurate a new Dymaxion Big Map at the panoramic lawn of Bellevue on Penang Hill anticipating the new dawn whatever the weather. At 6.35am it began to drizzle as predicted by weather forecasts, recalling the realism of rain experienced before, as others arrived including my niece Kuei Ying and her daughter Phek Shaan, son-in-law Wei Kiat and daughter Sophie, with her violin, (later persuaded to play before her great grand uncle, who contributed some critical observations to improve her music!)

At 7am the drizzle intensified as rain to wash our map, while dark clouds hovered without impairing the panoramic view. Up to 9am the rain was unabated as the group had breakfast, before which I Gede Sukerena and I shared accounts of the traditions of Bali, also to explain the umbuls in the view which remind of the Bali, Bellevue and Bucky connections.
It remain sunsightless, and despite the mist we gathered around the Big Map, recalling the World Game and global geography, while Tan Weiming made video recordings from his drone above of the memorable happening. (see video recording below)

Later I shared with the group thoughts and concepts for the future of Bellevue Buckyworld as a Trust to presage possibilities in its realisation.

After lunch, the group toured the Bellevue Ginger Gardens to learn about the native flora and especially the palm and zingiberales collection, including the rare species in the Folia malaysiana dome, the non botanists being persuaded to learn. Notably the population of Alpinia buckiana* were prominent in the Bellevue gardens.
*[The new species identified by C.K. Lim and named after Bucky had been mentioned in previous notices, but is currently published taxonomically in the latest issue of Folia malaysiana, Vol. 19]

11 July 2024

On the 11th July, friends had gathered informally to remember the special redolent ambience of Bucky at Bellevue, which had been stimulated by Joo Hock, Jona Pang and Ali Ibrahim from Singapore, joined by William Khoo, Jon Su, Fletcher Ong, Ooi Bok Kim, Chen Yu, Jerry Cheah and wife, Tan Weiming and Khing Chuah – and I Gede Sukerena from Bali – and our young botanists Nabilah , Khaleeda, plus Anuar Isahak from Suriana Botanic Conservation Garden – also Maryam Abdullah and Kev Yeow who were due to come to help on our extensive Fuller archives and chrono photofiles – and to update our website for remembering Bucky. Staff members from Bellevue and Heritage Research were also in attendance: Indran, Anila, Parvathy and others.

In the Campuan Lounge where we converged after our introductory tea, I was impelled to introduce the ersatz or lingering presence of Bucky on his ornate rattan chair, and to share some accounts of our contacts in Bali and Penang when the Campuan meetings transmigrated in 1981 and 1983, with photo albums of the events. Sensing the receptive mood, we played a recording of the poignant music that Bucky and I had shared, when he stayed at my Starpoint home in Singapore. I had asked him to choose what he would like to hear, whereupon he asked me to make the choice. Amazingly he concurred that the choice was one of greatest works of music, and more special to him was that the cellist was Casals, his great friend! The sublime work by Schubert was the Opus 163 String Quintet in C.

Dinner was the occasion for getting really reacquainted, with conversations into the night, while preparations were ongoing on the lawn for the following morning. Indran, Kalam, Anuar, Haikal and helpers worked to lay out the new Dymaxion map in readiness for its launch on Bucky’s birthday.

Messages & News

Joo Hock

“Dear Datuk Seri Lim,
Coming to Bellevue, Penang Hill, annually if possible, for the gathering of fellow Buckians, has always been a “look-forward-to” event for me, a celebration of Bucky, his thinking, his philosophy, his ideas and his perspectives. I enjoy it, the informal get-together, the sharings, and the precessional outcomes of making new friends, etc., in a relaxed Natural environment,  For me, getting away from the hustle and bustle of urban life, it’s a wonderful Retreat. The humanism in one and all can blossom and flourish, as one takes time to “smell the flowers” in the garden.”

Jona Pang

“Dear Datuk Seri Lim,
My first visit to Bellevue  was in Nov 1996, seeing some interesting old diagrams, drawings and photos along the corridors & cafe walls, too bad I did not take any photos then.  When I first read “Critical Path” in 1999, somehow those old pictures in Bellevue’s corridor came up to my mind and hence my holiday trip to Bellevue in 2003.. My first stay at Bellevue on March 2003 with my parents and sister was in family room no. 2.  My father woke up with a giant centipede inside his shoe one morning, luckily for him the centipede did not bite his foot. Interestingly, I am able to stay in room 2 this round, giving me some good memories. In 2003, while having afternoon coffee, a lady guest and me were chatting, when she said aloud,  “Any idea who is this gentleman whose photo was in my room?”. (see photo) I got curious. What a big surprise then seeing Bucky’s photo in room 1. I shared a little about Bucky and went out to find all the artifacts I could see in the lobby.. I was very happy lugging back “Synergetics” to Singapore. The late Sng Tong Hai from the Bucky group  suggested to me about meeting you since I was travelling to Penang.  I was hoping to meet you while at Bellevue in 2003 but we were unable to meet then despite some phone calls. “

“

Ali Ibrahim

“Dear Datuk Seri Lim,
The world of Bucky could never have been actualised if l had not gathered, consciously or subconsciously, the little seeds of understanding, through meetings with Datuk Seri Lim Chong Keat, since 1985. If l were to go directly to read the selective works of Bucky, which l dare not attempt and never could (but at best only skimmed the surface), it would be mind boggling or a hard nut to crack! A novice (like me) will have to be kind to himself by slowly imbibing the easy facts and taking up a steady learning curve, a bite at a time. Slowly but surely it took me the last nine years, from 12th July 2015 to 12th July 2024 to get closer to Bucky’s thoughts through the process of a warm group listening and discussion. At these ‘Bucky-confluences’, I learned that you don’t have to know about the science of Geodesic dome, Dymaxion house, Tensegrity or Synergetics to know the man. Just put yourself in Bucky’s shoes, by sensing what Bucky could be experiencing – in silence – when all alone under a great geodesic roof, contemplating on the 10,000 flow of things, all in the interest of mankind. Buckminister Fuller was indeed a good worker, a genius, a mystic and a friend of the universe – to the awakening call of: ‘Who exactly am l and why on earth am l doing this?’“

The Estate of R.Buckminster Fuller

from Jaime Snyder and the Fuller Estate came the poignant video of Fuller’s Last Speech, made in June 1983 – six days before his death to preceded Anne’s. Shirley Sharkey and I had met him in London just a few days earlier, from the 19th to the 22nd June, the events which I have described in the opening chapter of my episodic memoirs: “Confluencing with Bucky”, which will hopefully be in print after edits soon.

Transcript of the video

Audience Questioner 1: If you knew this was your last few hours on this planet Earth: What would you be doing?  Bucky:  [Laughs]  Darling, I never ask myself such questions.  [Audience Laughs, Applause] Audience Questioner 1:  I’m asking! Bucky:  So I don’t have any hypotheticals like that.  Audience Questioner 1: What message would you… Bucky:  I hope up to the last second I’m here, I’ll be doing what I’m doing now with you.  [Audience Applause] Audience Questioner 1: If it were your last day, what would be your message to us? What would be the message you would want to leave for us?  Bucky:  Darling, number one, I don’t do anything really about me. I started, as I said, 56 years ago. I’m seeing what a little individual who, penniless, unknown, might be able to do effectively—was there something inherent in an individual?.. That was not in the nation; that was not In politics; that was not in big business? What could the individual do is I’m an experiment to see what the little individual could do, and I never forget I’m a little individual.  The good news about me is that I am an average, healthy human being. I did have very good luck in getting that exposure to generalized generalization through the Navy. That was extraordinarily good fortune, but at any rate, I don’t do anything… People often ask me—I really have many, many newspapers—what do you want to be remembered for? I say: I don’t want to be remembered. I’m not doing what I do to be remembered. I do hope the… what I’ve been able to discover and get out on paper and printed will be read and will be… the significance will be appreciated. I hope that’s… but I don’t care about appreciating me doing it. I want the people to appreciate the significance of it—so they’ll act that way.  [Applause, Scene Change] Peggy:  I wanted for you to share with them what you shared with me at lunch: is the thing you say before you lay down every time… I was so touched by that, I think these people would really appreciate hearing that.  Bucky:  I think Peggy, I’d like to mention when you first sat down, I told you that I had been on this terrific… physically trying schedule. And it wasn’t just crossing the Atlantic, things like that. They were occasions when people I was speaking to might make some difference, you know. And, so I felt responsibility all the way.  But any rate, I’ve been traveling and speaking so much recently that I was terr—really, terribly tired. Last night I was so tired I really couldn’t sleep: probably sometimes when you’re really tired you can’t. And I arrived here this morning, feeling really—my heart was palpitating—I had a, I’m sorry, to say my first experience with something like that going wrong in about two weeks ago in Boston.  I was coming up out of the subway, the Park Street there, and the escalator stopped. And it was 30 feet. In other words three stories high. And there was an iron gate, one way gate, and people were piling in behind me wanting to get up this thing. So I felt compunction to try to get out of their way as fast as I could. So I worked terribly hard, pulling myself up that escalator, and I got to the top and crossing Tremont street, and I began to… And luckily, I had a young engineer with me. And I said, I, I think I’m going passing out here. And they just—and I did pass out and they got me onto a bench in the park.  And next thing when I came to, they said they had an ambulance from the Massachusetts General Hospital and they check my heart and everything said, “You seem to be pretty good. You might as well go over to the hospital to have a check up while we have the ambulance right here.” So I did. [Audience Laughter] And the uh young doctor was a very very good one, in the Massachusetts they gave me electrocardiograph a number of things and he said “What’s name your doctor?” I said Doctor Pocock in Los Angeles. So he called Pocock and he told him what the symptoms and everything he had. And they both agreed that’s perfectly alright for me to go on out. At any rate, I’m still shocked by the event where I passed out. Right in the street—luckily I had a friend with me.  Anyway. I began, when I came today, I was really feeling like that was almost imminent I wondered, “Am I going to pass out in front of these people?” No, I can’t tell you, I really my heart was beating hard, having a hard time to get enough breath. And so I was really very apprehensive.  And when we met at lunch, I told you I felt as if I was 10 years old again. There’s something very mysterious that goes on. I’ve spoken probably, you know, publicly several, several thousands of times, large audiences and something happens very strangely: the audiences give you strength. If we really are understanding something together. Something very, very mysterious about this, but I am right now feel like a 10 year old again. Something’s actually happened to me anyway, that’s what I talked to Peggy about.  Then we had my grandson had arranged things beautifully, and Ron, so that if we finished and they had a couch all waiting for me to lie down, and I can go to sleep in a great hurry.  [Audience Laughter] No, my wife tells me I get to sleep in 30 seconds after lying down. I don’t know what it was today, but you were sitting there.  Peggy:  About that.  [Audience Laughter] Bucky:  Anyway, I stood up beside you and I said, Peggy, I’d like to tell you, whenever I’m going to lie down or to take a nap, even sitting in a chair—whenever I’m going to go to sleep, let go, I always say, “Yours, dear God, is all the glory. I have absolute faith and trust in you. Period.” [Scene Change] Bucky: Last night, I think I said I didn’t sleep very well. I kept seemingly seem as if I thought I might be… Are we both supposed to die at the same time as some mystery going on? Maybe it’s so. I’m sure everyone of you had some very extraordinary experiences that can never be classified as probability. I’m not going to talk about the ones that I have had, but I really have had many and I’m sure you have, where it goes way beyond coincidence. That Nature has some kind of periodicities, of waves of things that go through many times when she has them very tightly in phase with moon, new moons or whatever it may be, things, certain special things.  But come back to why we’re here today: Integrity Day. The thing about wonderful human beings and whatever we are doesn’t really die. But this particular experiment: don’t forget we really are in question. Are we really going to carry on with our integrity? And I’m meeting so many human beings around the world. Literally been invited—I’ve been around the world 50 times, never as a tourist, always doing some kind of a job. I’ve been invited and had appointments over five-hundred and fifty universities and colleges around the world. So enormous experience with human beings.  And… Obviously, there are many things I’ve said to you tremendously familiar with the great set of changes going on. But you often have—you can really have a miscarriage here very easy. I think we’re breaking through into a completely new relationship to Universe. I think we had to have the customs we had—I don’t rue anything. People often ask me, How would you like to redo your life? I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t know anybody that’s made so many mistakes and that’s the only reason I know so much.  [Audience Laughter and Clapping]  And that brings me back, and people do ask me, What do you think the most important discovery ever you made? And I said, The importance of truth. Wow. So, darling, beautiful people, I feel you very deeply. I feel you must feel with me and able to appreciate when I tell you about other experiences I’m having like this.  I think humanity does have a good chance of passing this examination. I think we went by the great crisis at the time of the Falklands. I don’t want to tell you get into complex of why I say that. But I think we did. The question about whether you’re going to use a bomb… 90% of humanity lived north of the equator. The 10% who live south of the equator live very close to the equator. The Falklands were a thousand miles away from anybody. A place where bombs just would have nothing to do with it. And there was a military trial there where, as whether the United States could protract taking oil from the Arabia 14,000 miles around Africa to Europe. And found out they couldn’t. That’s why the Europeans suddenly joined up with the Russian pipeline. There was a very enormous break in national politics that occurred in that moment. Never going to be really spelled out too clearly for you, but I think we’ve actually gone through the by the first point of tendency to really try out the bomb. And found it was not going to work in that kind of instance, alright.  I know we have the option. I know we have the capability to destroy ourselves. I also have known enough human beings to, really, be weighted on the side—I think it’s touch and go, but I think we’re going to make it. But don’t let up. Don’t let up. Or we won’t make it. Keep at your integrity more than ever in all your life before. So thank you, darling people.  [Audience Applause / Standing Ovation] I’d like to say, I don’t take that personally. I’m terribly excited by what you did because it tells me you understood me. That’s what we really care about. So I thank God for that. [Audience Applause / Standing Ovation]

I had been Bali several times since last July, where the Canangsari tensegrity dome is being remembered by the community, also the significance of Fuller and our Campuan meetings – and our relationship with the Peasant Painters of Penestanan.

Sadly, one of the most notable, I Ketut Tagen (born 31 December 1945) has died (mercifully after a prolonged illness).By happenstance I had been visiting him to help purvey his last paintings, and happened to be in Bali on 6 October 2023, when his cortege was on the way to the burial ground. The geometry of the geodesic dome had impacted on him (and also I Wayan Pugur) and significantly his painting has been acquired by the Singapore Art Museum.

Back to the living. Antares Maitreya has attended previous meetings at Bellevue, unable to come this year. Recently I met him and his Temuan wife Anoora at his tribalish longhouse. He has allowed me reveal who he was before he metamorphed into Antares, perhaps via “Mothballs” (a hint to discover this hyper versatile Malaysian unqiue character traceable via his websites and activities).

Here we introduce his previous persona as Kit Leee (who once performed as Snoopy in a Charlie Brown production!). More significantly he has to be revealed as a grandson of Buckminster Fuller (Jaime and Alexandra please note) – as per the indubitable 1975 inscriptions reproduced here!

Lim Chong Keat, 11/12/13 July 2024.
lckfoliamy@gmail.com