Stop One: Krannert Art Museum Mogalakewena
Is clutter art? Minus the Barbies and the balls of strewn yarn, this room could be my living room. Piles of books with post-its sticking out of them, tennis and soccer balls, lamps without shades, and toy plastic animals. It’s too close to home.
I know I’m never going to stop having lots of stuff, too much stuff. And I know that there is room in my house not being used wisely at all. But I’m also not one of those people who gets struck very often by the urge to organize, or to feel especially fulfilled when things are tidy. (It won’t last long; I know this.)
Seeing the mess made public, though, does bring up enough latent shame to make me feel like I should do something about my piles of piles as soon as I get home. Even if it’s just giving my mess a title.
Stop Two: Business Instructional Facility
As I stand looking out over the railing into the cavernous glass-encolsed space, an old urge strikes me. It would be so amazing to jump from this ledge, to fling myself into space and start swinging from the tantalizingly hung lights. I say urge, but it’s mostly video game induced fantasy. Haven’t you gotten really close to an edge, though, and felt more than a little interested, compelled, to try the big what if? No suicidal tendencies here, just a temporary short in the reptilian self-preservation system. And haven’t you felt something similar in an incredibly awkward or boring public speaking setting? There’s that nearly uncontrollable desire to shout something ridiculous in a funny voice.
Stop Three: Courtyard between Architecture Bldg and DKH
In a few limited places on campus, if I zoom in just right and find a way to ignore everything beyond the narrow scope (looking really closely at a slate roof, a brick chimney, and a white window frame did it this time), I can be reminded of a summer I spent in England on the campus of Cambridge.
A forbidding hedge around a neighboring building was my original cue. But the sprigs poking up from it and the ill-tended grass beyond it broke the spell, and quickly.
A sunken doorway with cracked and peeling paint, flanked on either side by now green copper lanterns works, too. Until you hear the splash (and smell of chlorine) of the shopping mall brick fountain. No need for artificial waterworks when your dorm is steps from the banks of the river Cam.
Stop Four: Along Sixth St., approaching Murphy’s
Having lived in Champaign-Urbana since 1994, now more than half my life, I have a certain affinity for this place. Especially campus, which is a world so unlike what I had known before. When I look on a building that’s been built since I’ve been here, I think about how this space changes over time. And I wonder especially about what it would have been like to be here when campus was actively encroaching on and integrating residential space. I like the fact that nestled between institutional brick megabuildings, there are these former homes. Though their siding is now vinyl, no more wood, and a brown metal sign announces their purpose from the yard, you know at one point these streets were lined not just with classrooms and offices, but with families and their homes.
FilkBlog: The Scott Filkins Experience 