Sunday, January 16, 2005

Inside my head, I walk around the campus of my youth. . . .

MP3's on random, here's what came up tonight:

Into My Arms - Nick Cave
I've Got A Theory - Cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Make You Feel My Love - Bob Dylan
Rainbow Connection - Sarah McLachlan
Apparitions - Matthew Good Band
The Simpson's Theme - TV theme song
A Kiss To Build A Dream On - Louis Armstrong
On My Own - Lea Salonga
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
Jagged - Old 97's

My sweet MIL is home from the hospital. She felt well enough to go with us when we took Zappa back up to his apartment this evening. He has no internet right now and needed it to complete an assignment so he came home last night to use ours.

And to eat mashed grilled cheese sandwiches and fried eggs. And to gather up his Christmas loot that he wasn't able to take with him after Christmas because of the snow; there just wasn't room in that pickup truck for it all and him, too.

Several people have asked me what a "Hairbanger's Ball" is. Belle loves to go to those with her friends. It's a Tribute to the Eighties concert!! Remember that big hair back then? REO Speedwagon hair? Foot-high cheerleader bangs? Hence the name. She and her friends love it. (If you need to add any details, Belle, by all means do.)

I wonder if there could possibly be a campus as beautiful as the Indiana University campus in Bloomington? I love to walk around and look at it. (It's especially nice now that I don't have to run like mad to make that ten-thirty class and hope the professor isn't collecting homework. . . .) The architecture: each building completely different. The artistic use of brick, and limestone, and cobblestsones, and tiles. . . . . Little unexpected gazebos and fountains and statues cropping up here and there where you least expect them. . . .That huge gorgeous fountain in front of the big main auditorium. The dinosaur footprint. The awesome majesty of all the big old trees, and the footpaths through the many wooded areas, and the Jordan River flowing haphazardly all over the campus, and all the pretty little wooded bridges over it. . . . The wellhouse. The observatories. All those fabulous Thomas Hart Benton murals in so many of the old buildings. The huge art museum. The Lilly Library. The huge famous Indiana University Library, where, on the fifth floor, you can still smell burned paper from the big fire of the late sixties. Yes, the library that is slowly sinking into the ground because the architects and construction people forgot to take into account the weight of all the books. A museum in almost every building. Belle works right in the middle of campus. I haven't gone snooping into her office yet. Um, I mean, stopping by to visit her. She did escort me to Morrison Hall, which houses the fabulous Kinsey Institute, for an interview last summer, though; the two buildings share a courtyard. Her building, Ballantine, is famous for several things, one of which is the fact that even though almost every undergraduate course is on the third floor, the elevator does not stop there. The students have to take it up to the fourth floor and walk down a flight. And, it is from the roof of Ballantine that many a despondent student has taken the plunge. Literally. They were doing it back in my day and they are still doing it. The last one was just a few months ago. This is of course NOT an amusing fact; nevertheless, it is a fact. Belle didn't see the last plunge, but saw the aftermath. That last student miscalculated, you see, and instead of splatting himself on the concrete, he bounced off a canvas window guard and the roof of the parking garage, and survived.

The center of campus is the most beautiful of it all, and the oldest. People come from all over the world to photograph it. It's indescribably beautiful.

The Student Union sprawls all over the top of a rise like a medieval monastery. Beck Chapel, tiny and old and an architechtural gem, sits placidly beside a miniature cemetery in which are buried the elite of IU alumni moneybags, in the middle of campus, not at all impressed by the fact that there is a waiting list a mile long of people wanting to be married there. The weddings are scheduled so tightly that each one is limited to twenty minutes, and people from the next wedding start to enter and be seated before the previous wedding is over. I've been to several there, and it's a hoot.

I've proudly shown friends around the campus many times. I spent many happy years on this campus, and when I compare it with any other campus I've ever seen, for real or in pictures, well, there just IS no comparison. IU is absolutely beautiful.

Don't get me started on its athletics, though. Because frankly I don't give two hoots in hell about that.

The strangest things can be found meandering through my mind sometimes. I mean, did anybody else ever wonder what Louis Armstrong sounded like when he had a bad cold and was hoarse? Would it have been any different?

What do you suppose dinner-time was like in the Tiny Tim household? Did they listen to ukelele music as they ate?

If Ozzy Osbourne is really as clueless and pathetic and burned-out as he seems in that reality show, how does he memorize the lyrics of his songs?

Does anyone else think that the Pat Boone household is really messed up?

Good thing we're all perfect, huh.