Even for you...

One of my favorite Simpson's moments is when Milhouse presents his science fair project and it is nothing more than a slinky on an inclined plane. "Behold, the awesome power of gravity!" intones Milhouse, and the slinky takes one step and stops. Mrs Kerbopple responds: "Pret-ty lame, even for you, Milhouse."

That's pretty much how it all went down when I presented my downtown Starkville plan in Design class last week.

I remember as a lad of eleven or twelve watching somebody interview Mick Jagger on television. "Your latest album, "Some Girls," the journalist said, "it's just SO sexist...SO racist..." at which point Mick abruptly stood up, nearly breaking loose of his chest mic, in a gesture of indignant confrontation, and proclaimed "Our next album is going to be even MORE racist and MORE sexist...and it is going to be a LOT BETTER!"

This is the approach to the creative process that formed my youth and has served me well over the years. Terrence McKenna once said regarding psychedelics: if you are not sure how much to take, double the dose.

The clock is running out and it is time to throw down. Tally ho, gentlemen.

work

I survived the first half of the semester. Turns out, I did not spend a week in photoshop, as predicted. I zoomed in on Starkville and drew a Lampkin Street farmer's market in autoCAD which looked like this:

After about 8 nonstop hours labeling and rendering in photoshop I got this, which has some flaws, but I say "not too shabby!"

Athena

I am glad that I have not yet come to a place where I might feel the need to doubt my skepticism. Moving from one discipline to another involves, in my case, among other things, moving from the activity of interpretation to that of interpolation, and I prefer the latter, although one needs to know how to do both. So I visited Athena Parthenos in her new home in Centennial Park in Nashville, Tennessee, and was pleased to find her in very good form. Serious but not stern, with wide, clear and knowing eyes, protector of the Honky Tonks, the Titans, the steel and chrome and the shattered dreams of the troubadours. My Stats professor once told me: one day everything will become clear, and you will understand everything, but, in order to do that, you need a PhD. in Sociology."