busted

tonight, in history of housing, i showed off the totally fabulous digital poster that the now legendary cari j! varner made for the pin up in the fall '05 version of this class. the slide was of the "painter of light" thomas kinkade. the "problem"? as it projected and i rambled about how smart cari was to pair thomas kinkade's iconography with the 19th century tastemaker andrew jackson downing, one of my architecture colleagues walked by, paused, and listened to my remarks.

i had an fleeting moment of feeling like a total fraud. i reckoned that he must have been wondering what on earth is this planning brawd on about? in fact, it wasn't really the case. [he evidently shows kinkade as well to talk about kitsch and the banal].

like hoar frost that crystallizes on the dewy petals of our unmowed lawn, i can see little girl crushes forming in my doe-eyed students.* three people kept me an hour after class [that ends at 9 flipping p.m.] to talk more about issues raised in class. we had great extended conversations that i wish we could repeat in front of the others so that all could hear.

from an unexpected source, tonight in the class conversation about company towns, one of the students remarked about how gridded, rectilinear plans and homogeneous facades must be really "boring" especially when set in distinction to the owner's/management's fancy large manses.

dang.

good remarks. and good reminder to me that i can't judge a student by his baseball cap. i so love it when the students show me a thing or two.

we had one other moment in class like that tonight, i asked a question about whether and what should be placed in the center of a town. we had just looked at pullman, a company town in chicago, that has a clock tower that soars above the neighbors. one of the students commented about why management would want to remind the workers/residents of the time every single moment.

again, i type: dang. it's so obvious, but i sure never said that out loud before.

tonight, was the first time that i spoke about my old friends in manhattan, the panhellenic and the downtown athletic club at michigan. i have never had students laugh heartily as i explain the floor plans of a place, but that 9th floor of the downtown athletic club is funny especially when i refer to rem koolhaas' take on the white male inhabitants moving through the homosocial spaces from the boxing ring to the oyster bar to the showers and then on to the locker rooms and dressing stalls.

[and as i type this last sentence, it just dawned on me why some of you have commented that you have little idea what i am talking about 1/2 the time on this site. thanks for riding along anyway.]

*speaking of doe-eyed. what about nicole richie in the vanity fair article? thanks again dr. liza for the subscription.

it's official, kelly quinn is not disappointed.