T ho says big government has to be boring? The United States Courthouse in San Antonio proves that justice isn't blind, by introducing a pleasing shape to an otherwise unpleasant place. The courthouse is round, and on its shady side covered with glass panels that face an open plaza. White columns separate from the building and appear to hold the roof up, though it is unlikely they serve any real structural support function. They do, however serve to welcome visitors into an otherwise sterile environment by embracing them before they realize how close they are to the building. Overall, a surprisingly innovative design for a government building.
Jim Keller
Saturday, December 6th, 2008 @ 4:06pm
Rating: Five stars. I was an extra in the film. Our sequence was shot on a beach in Truro, MA, near Provincetown. It begins as a pristine beach which is gradually invaded by more and more people bringing more and more of their junk with them -- and instead of people communing with the natural seaside environment, the area becomes an extension of middle class materialism in which no one is paying much attention to the beauty around them.By far the majority of the shooting involved coordinating the special 3 lensed camera for each shot.I remember in particular a pretty, as in spectacularly noticeably pretty, young assistant producer, very fair-skinned, who obviously hadn't been out in the sun much.After cavorting around in a green polka dot bikini all the first day to the delight of most of us, she showed up, well covered, with a face the color of cooked lobster for the last two days. A scene from the movie was a centerfold picture in a Life Magazine article on the 1968 Hemisfair, and my big butt on the beach was right in the center of the fold.Now that Google's reached an agreement to host "over 97% of Life's 10 million picture archive" I thought I might be able to find and print my backside's 15 seconds of fame -- for our family, uhhh, posterity, as it were, but no search on Google images I've come up with has been able to turn up the image I'm after. If anyone knows how to help with this, it would be much appreciated.
David Anthony Richelieu
December 11th, 2001
The U.S. Courthouse in San Antonio was the Confluence Theater that was the U.S. Pavilion at HemisFair, the 1968 World's Fair in San Antonio. It showed the film "Us" that explored the good and bad of American society. The show began in 1,000-seat theaters showing old films. Each had a propeller plane take off and the screen went dark, the noise turned to a jet engine roar and at the crash of cymbals we were flying in the clouds facing a screen that covered the entire back wall of the building. What had been three theaters became one as the walls lifted out of sight in the darkness. The rest of the film had one huge 180-degree image or three images divided by thin splits between the screens. But it was amazing to suddenly find yourself in a huge 3,000 seat theater after being in the smaller ones. The building was recycled into a courthouse named for the federal judge killed at his home here by actor Woody Harrelson's father.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Jim Keller
Five stars.