No one warned us that starting university was going to be such a strange experience. Well, perhaps not strange, but certainly an essay in sociology or anthropology. So, it was with some relief that our Anthro 101 prof suggested that we each undertake an anthropological study on campus, partly to acclimatize ourselves to postsecondary life, partly to begin to learn a discipline whose goal was to help you understand the weird and the wonderful.
Among the topics proposed by our prof were:
Only notable comments were heard in the Environmental Design (EVDS) building, where the Philosophy department was also located. A philosophy student (likely, but not confirmed) was talking about somebody named Rue So, who apparently wrote a famous book about the education of students called Emily. Ironically, Rue So himself had several illegitimate children by several different women. A secretary from EVDS (assumed, but not verified) broke elevator silence and asked whether this Rue So was a prof in "this building".
- A"content analysis" of iron-on T-shirt transfers spotted on campus;
- Stitch designs on the back pockets of blue jeans;
- First words spoken by profs by discipline;
- Elevator behaviour per building;
- Graffiti on the risers of stairs in the Social Sciences tower;
- Graffitti on the backs of fiberglass chairs, also in the Social Sciences tower;
- Subjects, authors and titles featured in low traffic areas of the library;
- Reception of persons with amputations;
- Faculty and student satisfaction with assigned parking locations;
- Essay topics by discipline;
- Presence of Spanish onion in boiled egg and roast beef sandwiches;
- Response to borscht and french fry gravy in the MacEwan Hall cafeteria; and
- Description of unaccountable objects on profs' desks and bookcases, and their explanation of same.
As I recall there was uptake on all of the above. Results were decidedly mixed when we made presentations on our essays just before midterms.
T-shirts
There were no discernible patters on iron-on T-shirt transfers, except that it seemed mandatory to have something on a T-shirt indicating that you had been, or were from, or were hoping to visit, or knew someone who had been, Anywhere But Here. It was not too early for Wookiees, but J.K. Rowling may probably wasn't born yet, so I doubt any of the T-shirt designs included a Hairy Potter.
Blue jeans
Levi, Lee, Wrangler, Le Coulottier each had distinctive back patch pocket stitching. The more interesting issues were the cut of the legs--flare, bell bottom (butterfly or harem pants had not yet been naturalized in Calgary, even though we had all watched I Dream of Jeannie), and the fit at the hips--husky or slim (I don't recall that regular was an option), and length of the legs--flood (showing white athletic socks--men and women) or in style (hem breaking on toes of sneakers).
First words
These were unremarkable. Examples included: "Good morning ladies and germs"; "I didn't want to teach this course"; "If anyone wants to drop out now you'll be doing us both a favour"; "Attendance is mandatory, passing is not".Elevator behaviour
Definitely de rigueur to make eye contact in elevators in all campus buildings. Important to look up, or down, or at the doors. Cooler to use open door button instead of using your arm to stop closing doors. Conversation universally frowned upon.Only notable comments were heard in the Environmental Design (EVDS) building, where the Philosophy department was also located. A philosophy student (likely, but not confirmed) was talking about somebody named Rue So, who apparently wrote a famous book about the education of students called Emily. Ironically, Rue So himself had several illegitimate children by several different women. A secretary from EVDS (assumed, but not verified) broke elevator silence and asked whether this Rue So was a prof in "this building".
It is unclear whether the student realized the frontispiece to the first edition of Emile showed Achilles being dunked by his left ankle into the River Styx, which made him invulnerable--except for his heel. Not that it mattered. At the time, Styx was likely only to evoke a rock group and a love song, which would have confirmed all of the secretary's suspicious about the hapless imagined prof. She would have been scandalized regardless.
Other libraries I have browsed appear to have been designed by Jeremy Bentham, whose Panopticon model serves equally well for prison cells and library stacks.
What did the Oblates at Saint Paul University or Vancouver Public Library know that we didn't? But Father Allie was not like that--the only secret he seemed to carry was that the Bible and Canon Law and Theology belonged in one part of the library, and the rest of the books were of no consequence, as they were all literature, regardless of whether they were philosophy, church history, Luther, or pastoral counselling.
Perhaps Bentham was right to be stuffed and wheeled out on his birthday every year. At least his Auto-Icon pamphlet with instructions on how to embalm him after he died was pulled out and read at least once!
To be continued
Graffiti
The graffiti on the risers at the top of the stairs in the Social Sciences tower meant nothing to any of us. Rene Levesque had recently told everyone to "take a Valium", and when confronted with the Quebec referendum in 1976, Calgarians said they would be the first ones over to build a wall around Quebec. But no one remembered Leon Balcer, whose name and a caricature of a frog was on the last riser in the Social Sciences stair well before exiting to the roof. Later I learned that Balcer had been Diefenbaker's Quebec Lieutenant, but felt the Chief (in spite of George Grant's glowing portrait of Dief in his (Grant's) book, Lament for a Nation) wasn't doing enough to prevent the assimilation of the French into English speaking North America, and resigned from the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. We assumed the frog caricature was self-explanatory, but we made a lot of mistakes in those days. Perhaps it was Toad of Toad Hall.More graffiti
Some poorly educated students scribbled his concerns on the backs of the orange fiberglass chairs in the basement of the Social Sciences tower. It's not that graffiti was necessarily out of place on an Eames chair, but the artist seems to have been brain dead in significant respects. He or she converted chair into a true Halloween piece with the word retarick crudely marked in black permanent market close enough to the top of the chair that you couldn't miss it when you were pulling your chair away from the table to sit down. I presume the word he was looking for was rhetoric, but somehow that got confused with retard and dickhead and came out retarick. I would imagine the poor soul was taking a course in rhetoric, but couldn't comprehend the belletristics. Like Kant appreciation, few can. Most of those who can, won't. And the rest won't admit it.Untouched stacks
If you have ever really browsed through a university library's stacks--or any library's stacks for that matter--you know that most books appear never to have been opened, let alone read. |The security guard at the bottom of the escalator was tasked with opening the pages of foreign books with a letter opener. All other books were presumed open--even if they were unread. We learned that the library did indeed contain Playboy magazines, but these were well thumbed and sweated over. There was very little that was offensive about these--they are the kind that would be rolled into a cardboard whiskey tube and given to your dad at Christmas by Uncle Lee to be opened in front of everyone, including mom and Auntie Sandra. It would be 40 years before the Cambridge University Library--designed by the person who created the modern British pillar box--with its fabled banned books opened to the public. It turns out erotica was frequently produced and sold on the black market, and was never copyrighted--hence not deposited, or otherwise imprisoned in the Cambridge tower.Other libraries I have browsed appear to have been designed by Jeremy Bentham, whose Panopticon model serves equally well for prison cells and library stacks.
Amputees
The investigation of the reception of persons with amputations was inconclusive, IN PART, because the only person who had an amputation was the prof himself. He lost a finger to a rock picker in a corn field. One wonders why he couldn't have just had a tangle with a rattler and call it at that. But needs must.Parking
In the car economy that was and is Calgary, jockeying for parking spots in good locations was great sport--trouble is, everybody felt they had lost. What was better, for example, parking on the far west side of campus, where you could try to find your car at the end of the day in the glare of the setting sun, or parking off Crowchild and trudging through snow drifts to get to an 8:00 a.m. lecture with the sun--such as it was--at your back? The Sun Also Rises. It also sets.
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