I just applied for a job as a production editor for a Big, Classy, Prestige-o-matic university press — the first job I’ve applied for in almost seven years, I think. I just happened to be hanging out with friends this weekend and they were all like, Yo dawg, apply for some phreakin university jobs already and get some mad benefits and stop yer bitchin about the current job, aight? So I go online and lo and behold: a job that I think I could actually do had been posted Friday. Now my stomach is full of vomity butterflies just thinking about getting a call from their HR department. I hate hate hate phones.
The weekend was so amazingly good. I didn’t get garden stuff and start my little container garden — it was too rainy yesterday to want to schlep bags of potting soil home — but we did see The Saddest Music in the World, followed by a walk to Harvard for an early dinner at the Border Cafe (mercifully uncrowded with students). The Japanese postcard exhibition at the MFA was a stunner — such a huge variety of designs, from traditional Japanese styles to Arts both Nouveau and Deco to surprisingly modern. I also liked a couple of the pieces by Tim Noble and Sue Webster, particularly the sculptures of household refuse that, when lit by a single light, projected detailed shadow-images of figures or a skyline. Post-art, we had a great lunch at Legal, explored MIT’s new building, all wacky-designed by Frank Gehry, near my office, took a sail on the Charles (no eel sightings, luckily), watched “Master and Commander” at Teresa’s and ate lots of pasta and Burdick’s truffles.
Yow, the sky looks like it’s about to open up — I’m getting out of here, stat.
Wow - the potential job sounds cool. I hope that works out. What did you think of the Gehry? Rose is a fan - we toured his Disney thing when we were in LA last winter. Photos and such don’t do it justice: it *works* as a building, from the inside, functionally, in a way that isn’t apparent just seeing photos. The MIT one looks amusingly like water-soluble architecture…
Personally, I’m a fan of this new building. It’s enormous and kooky and a good healthy dose of weird in an area that screams Engineering Students Don’t Care How Their Surroundings Look! and Depressing Warehouse Flats Limned By Trash-Strewn Railroad Tracks!. Plus, they’ve planted echinacea among some of the ground cover in one of the elevated patios. If I had to actually work and study there, I might be overwhelmed at the prospect of getting from Point A to Point B, but as a stroller-byer, it makes me happy. A woman at my company (recent college grad) fervently believes that the design is the result from some crazy mash-up — “they lost the blueprints for the original building and so they just smushed together the blueprints from some other architects!” Hee! My only worry is that this thing ain’t gonna age well: some fellow gawkers last weekend were pounding on the shiny skin to prove how easily it dents, and I can see pollution and rain wreaking havoc with the facades and seams.
Apparently, Gehry designs by sketching, then modeling: his assistants (I believe) are charged with the unenviable task of translating those documents into actually buildable and plausibly engineered structures. (This, by the way, is common enough with Star Architects. Milwaukee’s li’l claim to arch. fame - our art museum addition by Santiago Calatrava - essentially put Calatrava in the role of designer and conceptualizer - but most the on-the-ground work was done by the local architect of record (yes, the firm Rose works for). That isn’t really a problem - in a way, it’s freeing for everyone - but as is often the case, The Way Things Are Done with the stars is quite different from both yr everyday practice and from what people generally think.
The wear issue is a real one: one can only hope that it at least was thought out, and that appropriate maintenance funding was budgeted.
I’m sure you enjoy reading comments that use “budget” as a verb - makes you miss work, don’t it!
Have you heard back from the University re: job?
Not yet. I’d pretty much given up hope of hearing anything, but a friend who works there said that the wheels often turn slllooooooowwwllly. So we shall see.