My friend and mentor Bob Wise atop his boat Loose Moose II on launch day
This is from chapter 70 of Boat with an Open Mind: Loose Moose II
“Staring with the two desks, some more ambitious suggestions crept in, such as a proposed voyage from the Moselle in France to a West Indian Island, via the Rhone, the Mediterranean, and the Canary Islands. We didn’t delude ourselves that a Bolger Box, even a long one, was the best possible vehicle for this enterprise; only that is was capable, that the modesty of the investment advance the plan, and that the box was ideal for the in-port living between passages. The shallow and compact boat could take choice berths not accessible to more conventional cruisers.”
“I don’t have much respect for the architecture of Le Corbusier, but his “machine for living” concept is stimulating if you study, more than he ever did, how people can, should, and do live. If you try to disguise a machine like this, say by raking the ends or breaking the sheer, you produce a box with unconvincing concessions to style that only emphasize that you’re ashamed of it.
“I’ve been thinking that one of these boats might make a surface for a mural painting — say, an arctic seascape on the starboard side and a tropical beach to port. Or a fleet of vessels, or a crowd of people. The long, horizontal shape fits subjects hard to adapt to the usual proportions of a picture frame. The frame itself, the boat’s profile, is suggestive. As a child I was fascinated by the carved and gilded Victorian frames on the painting in my grandfather’s parlor. It’s a healthy exercise to call up from memory the art objects that I enjoyed before I was taught by academic critics to despise them.”
The Loose Mooose II was a good boat. It was more capacious than nearly any cruiser of similar length, sailed better than most similar sized racer-cruisers, drew only 18″ of water, was fast to build, and cost roughly an order of magnitude less than any commercially produced boat in her class.
Of course to achieve this Phil had ignored virtually all of the reasons that most people buy a 40′ sailboat. Most people buy a 40′ sailboats for the same reason most people buy a Rolex, to tell other people, to tell themselves who they are and where they fit into the scheme of things. What the boat is actually capable of doing is quite secondary to what it announces about it’s owner.
Loose Moose II upset people. It did. It made people angry.
Spend any length of time with Bob and you’ll will hear all manner of stories of his being told by other yachtsmen (in no uncertain terms) that the Loose Moose II couldn’t sail, wasn’t safe, and (most of all) that it was ugly.
The first two accusations were demonstrably untrue. LMII was good on all points, and regularly sailed past boats captained by her accusers. She crossed oceans and stood gales, whilst carrying Bob and his wife Sheila, a couple hundred bottles of french wine, all the tools used to build her, Bob’s Steadicam rig and the rest of his cinema gear, and their collection of vintage guitars (his) and basses (hers).
As to the third, that the Loose Moose II was ugly, well that is a matter of taste, isn’t it? If the notion of sailing around in tropical waters with your wife, at 40-something years of age, debt free, while putting your son through Harvard is appealing, LMII’s boxy lines take on a sort of winsome charm.
But like I said, that’s not why most people buy a 40 footer.
What is it you actually want from your life as a “creative person”?
I want people to look at me as I walk by, and say, with envy rattling their voices, “There goes a creative person!”Report
Hmmm. This seems at odds with the persona you depict here and elsewhere on the internet. It seems mostly like you want to blend in, except for an a couple of carefully choose and crafted ways. The food and drink posts, tweets, etc seem the most purposely revealing.Report
I was being sarcastic, yes.Report
What is it you actually want from your life as a “creative person”?
I view my creations as children. I want them to flourish, and am willing to sacrifice myself for them to do so.Report
I’m curious, Roger. You name doesn’t link to anything. Do you see your creative pursuits as separate from your internet social/commentary life? Or do you maintain a separate persona in service of your creative work?Report
I am now retired. When I worked I led innovation and product design at an insurance company. My children were various products, systems, pricing discounts, and marketing programs. Some thrived, some didn’t. Those that thrived have done well, scarcely a day goes by that I do not see an advertisement for a product or feature that would never have existed without my involvement.
After 30 years building ideas for big business, I felt that there was nothing that I would do tomorrow that would be all that different from the past. I decided to retire and do three things, spend the time with my family, surf, and study the most important topic in the universe.
I now spend my intellectual efforts trying to understand the nature of progress. What is it? How does it work? Is there an algorithm or recipe for progress? What are the myths and misunderstandings and traps of progress? Is it really a good thing at all? What are the similarities and differences between economic progress, scientific progress, cultural progress and evolution?
I am not a writer though… Not in the slightest. My next goal is to get with a writer and begin publishing some of my thoughts on the topic.Report
What is it you actually want from your life as a “creative person”?
Closure. Release. The long-suppressed sigh of relief.
Then to do it all over again.Report
This was quite wonderful.Report
Also, I have been meaning to keep an eye out for you these days to say thank you again for your part in starting the Thursday Night feature – they’ve gone over really, really well!Report
????? Are you referring to me? Or David?Report
To you! Thursday Night Bar Fights was started entirely because of you and your comments.Report
Oh. Well, thank you for the nice compliment. Um, where are these posts located?Report
There were actually two of them. The first one that got me starting to think was back here (your point #2); the one that made me cement the concept in my head was this one here.
Without you, no TNBFs – and they have been a big hit so far, so thank you.Report
“What is it you actually want from your life as a “creative person”?”
Awards. Cash prizes. Groupies. My own cologne.Report
Eh, “Wet Portlander” will never sell.Report
The great smell of Bill Walton in a bottle!Report
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.Report
Well, that would be taste, not smell, but you know…pot-AY-to, pot-AH-to….Report
My friend Bob is quite tall and went to UCLA on a basketball scholarship. He played center and his primary purpose was to give Bill Walton someone to beat up on in practice games.Report
Well, a scholarship is a scholarship.Report