Man, I am feeling on the verge of extinction, too! Long weekend in Pittsburgh, long drive, lots of heavy memory lifting. I am ready to go back to sleep. Worked on this dodo as a way of warming up for a SU picture around opposites. Am into the holiday images again. Think this is fun...will put them up as I finish them. I think I should read Tom Wolfe's book on the Painted Word to help with the aesthetics pieces. Can anyone tell me what or how does something work aesthetically...I think I know, but I would like someone who really knows to define. Also, What is visual intellect? Again, guessing is my mode. Anyone? I am wallowing in words, assumptions and vaguery...
Walked around downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland. The whole convention center and Cultural Center is really spiffy and nicely designed with lots of buzz with big restaurants, bars, parks and people out at all hours. The Convention Center is beautiful with it's reach over the water, poetry in blue as part of the building structure, and that way it interfaces with Penn Avenue. And so many new theaters! Wow. We stayed at the Westin (Hotwire gave us a fab price). It was wonderful, comfortable and embracing. They welcomed our having Shadowdog as part of our party...(normally, the hotels are not too psyched). I would recommend it for your next trip to the 'burg. Oakland was exciting with all of the students coming back. Lots of excited fresh faces. And the new park (formerly a parking lot) between the Pitt Law Library and the Carnegie Institute is a nice urban add...more green and a nice place to gather during good weather. CMU has a new residence hall between Morewood Gardens and Mudge. They had a couple of tents set up for some welcoming event (about time!!), and a nice new sculpture near Forbes Avenue. More positive moves for CMU!
On the way down, we spent the night in State College which always is welcoming, beautiful and an oasis smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania. An oasis with scrapple...maybe not, with scapple. In case you don't know it, scrapple is the wierdiest food in the entire universe. No exaggeration. Take in the wiki description and understand they are trying to be balanced, politically correct and taking the high road. Point blank, scrapple is just this side of awful.
However, State College is the counterpoint to awful. It is fabulous, beautiful and just enough stuff to keep 4 years interesting, diverse and a great experience. They used to have a great illustration/graphic design department moosh with Lanny Sommese... I wonder what has happened to it. Their graphic program was solid... I worked with a couple of graduates in Philadelphia who were good, and knew how to work...they were kind of frat boyish...good or bad... But as an old bag looking at Penn State, I say bring it on!
Cool and no humidity here. Lovely.