SB doesn't just feel like a square peg in a round hole. Most days he feels more like a dodecahedron with 12 congruent regular pentagonal faces, 30 edges, and 20 vertices in a globus. On a good day he may feel more like a truncated icosahedron (12 pentagons, 20 hexagons and 60 vertices with every pentagon surrounded by five hexagons), a closer fit but still not a fit.

The truncated icosahedron is more easily recognized as a standard soccer ball or the 𝐶60 Buckminsterfullerene molecule discovered in the mid 1980's. It is the most common fullerine molecule and is found in soot and stars.

The discoverers of the allotrope named the newfound molecule after American architect R. Buckminster Fuller, who designed many geodesic dome structures that bear similarities to C60 and who died in 1983, shortly before it's discovery. Another common name for the buckminsterfullerene molecule is "Buckyballs".

"Now here is when the name for something that seems overly complex actually makes sense to me." SB thought, "Most likely because it uses a name for a name".

Buckminster Fuller also evolved the geodesic dome for habitation. His "Fly's Eye Domes" were a continuation of his research and a prototype for lightweight, utopian housing units based on the structure of a fly's eye. These domes had the potential to be stacked in groups; the circular openings or 'eyes' would function as windows. They were relocatable and a glimpse into what the future might have been.

The idea for SB of living in a geodesic dome has never really appealed. Many of those Grand Kooky Design type programs he has watched that feature them as revolutionary architectural abodes just never really sang to him. He is more than content living and being in a long skinny rectangular prism where he lives as at 3pm Friday March 6 2026. A fish tank of sorts.

He cares deeply about where he lives.

While writing this, SB has informed me he is being dispatched to document the collapse of one of Fullers domes that occurred on February 27 2026 under the weight of blizzard snow at LongHouse Reserve, 133 Hands Creek Road in East Hampton, New York. Situated in the Hamptons on Long Island, alongside other concerned archivists, architects and artists he will have the specific role of documenting environmental variables, access, ingress and snow load data. He is also taking on the role of compliance delegate.

So, Martin decides to do SB a solid and will take over from here.

Laurie Anderson first spoke to Martin about Fuller back in 1988 in one of her brilliant tracks - The Big Top. It introduces Mr Fuller after a lovely stoccato circussy brassy intro - someone Martin had never heard of...

"When Buckminster Fuller came to Canada. He kept asking the same question. Have you ever really considered how much your buildings actually weigh?"

"The Canadians took this very seriously, Hey, we never thought of it that way".

"He showed them pictures of domed cities, cities with no basements, no foundations."

Listen for yourself...

"He said: Think of it as The Big Top. Spinning ... Lightweight ... Flyaway ..."

"He said: Think of it as the Big Top".

The track also uses the same percussive leitmotif as another of her tracks - "It Tango". Martin loved a Tango when he could find another cheek to share. The rose was not a requirement. There was always a twig or a pencil nearby that could stand in. "Born, Never Asked" is the preceding track to It Tango on her 1982 debut studio album Big Science.

You see, Martin was Born, never asked too. In 1989 he performed a routine as part of his graduating assessment using this track. A rope (Cloudswing) inexpertly strung between two 10 metre tall poplar trees in a little poplar wood on the Eastern outskirts of Bathurst, NSW Australia at the rear of a large Victorian Italianete style mansion called Woolstone. Originally built by a convict named Thomas Kite who had been sentenced to death in England for stealing £5 who instead was sent to Australia.

It was November, the poplars were dropping white fluff, snow like. It was for the evening celebration of his graduating year. Martin had decided to skip the formalities, the meal and festivities. There was a theme, speeches, a few other short performances too. Martin left shortly after his piece, after a brief chat with a few of his peers.

It was, of course, curiously received. Martin had rehearsed the routine countless times on the set-up he had at the farm strung between a broken windmill and a water tank. What he had not done was consider many of the potential variables.

The main variable on the evening was that everyone arrived early for the display. This meant that the plan for Martin to be in-situ sitting on the rope was not to be and his ascent was now going to have to be part of it all.

At this time, Martin had not been taught the correct technique for climbing a vertical rope using the least amount of energy. This endurance aspect was also not included in his training as the windmill setup used for rehearsal was just far enough off the ground he could jump to it. So, he was going to have to wing it.

The music began. The two spotlights on the bull-bar of his 1970 Volkswagen Beetle parked below pointing skyward were lit. The routine began and was simply a series of well practiced mostly unrefined moves that he had seen others do and others he made up with Laurie backing up.

Martin was very fit and strong at this time but the rope ascent had taken an unanticipated toll. The second to last move of the routine required Martin hanging from his hands at the bight, pulling himself up, lifting his legs en force and rotating himself into a swallow position and then finishing in a sitting position the way he started.

At the point of the lift, at that very moment the lactic acid surged to his arms and without even the slightest warning they simply would not work. Oh Dear.

A distinct, very clear command was issued. Ignored. A pointer went first, then the grip, no longer negotiable - released - everything just let go.

Two pairs of invisible hands were felt to receive his forearms — not catching so much as accompanying — "escorting him downward", buoying his 6 metre descent until the crash-mat arrived, unhurried, in what felt entirely like slow motion.

Was this Wood Fairies? Archimedes' thrust? Lactic Acidosis? Who knows?

Martin stood, as though he had done this a thousand times, raised one fairly floppy almost out of control wavy arm in the now near darkness and said. "That is as much as I have at the moment" and then flopped down back to the mat - winding himself slightly.

The music from the album Big Science continued while people dispersed to head back up the little path through the trees toward the house and followed with the track - "It Tango". The owner of the rope later said something about the display being 'anarchic'. It likely was (or Martin's version of, at least).

Only one of the few people Martin cared about at the time documented the show and took what are known to be the only few photographs of it. Apparently there were technical matters with the VHS recorder, so these are the only documentation Martin is aware of that are still around today.

THIS IS THE TIME. AND THIS IS THE RECORD OF THE TIME.

A Floating Fall, A Soccer Ball.

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