Friday, October 16, 2009

Wisconsin Pics

Like Illinois, the Wisconsin campus is dotted with massive exemplars of architecture in the "brutalist" style, including this, the Helen White Building, the seventh floor of which houses the English Department. The backside, pictured above, is where the conference room looks out on the lake. It is one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen from a university building, and as I was speaking, I was three times almost distracted into silence by a cluster of sailboats.

Below: this is the view from State Street, looking away from the university toward the state capitol building.

Somebody, along the lake, lost their thermal gloves, which a good Wisconsinite laid out on a picnic table to dry.

I was told that the two big holidays in Madison are August 14 (when the leases for the year end) and Halloween: below, some decorations on a frat house, between my hotel and the campus. No, the glass isn't a decoration (I think).
And right across the street: the Wisconsin Alumni Association, and their badger-mobile...
A jogger along the lake....
And some tables--abandoned, as it was about 38 degrees--next to the lake.
For the frats? No, for the Alumni Center....
A path through the woods, part of a nature preserve between the lake and the campus.
What I noticed here, as in Illinois, were lots of signs about the university's achievements, including this plaque on a boulder along the nature trail, for a Wisconsin Nobel prize winner.
And in the woods, this plaque to the first Wisconsin-born professor at the University of Wisconsin (from the late 19th century), and the first Norwegian-American to become a professor in an American university.

This newspaper stand has a special meaning too, in Madison, as the great Onion is published there.

On the porch of the Robert LaFolette building for Public Affairs--a preserved Wisconsin home, probably from 100 years ago--the treats were out for the local cats.

Some pictures from the beautiful College of Agriculture Building. The "short course" is a special 17-week program offered to accommodate people who need quick ag training.Another great plaque, capturing a lot of the greatness of UW.



Above: variants of brutalism; below, equally abundant illustrations of the campus's natural beauty (all from an experimental garden, where, admittedly, things were dying).


And the obligatory pictures of leaves.

Finally, some kayaks stacked along the lake.

Monday, October 12, 2009

on my walk yesterday... fall colors + the beginning of the laundry project.



Saturday, October 10, 2009