The Sample Gates seemed like a good place to start, being the entrance to campus. Now, though, we're going to jump all the way over to the other side and take a look at the music complex. Indiana is quite well known for its music program.

This is the view from the parking garage just north of Read Hall, which is where I lived during my time at IU. The brick building on theright is Delta Gamma house, a sorority (and one of the few Greek houses still located on the main part of campus). The tall structurenext to it is the fly space of the Musical Arts Center. Farther left is part of the Simon Music Center.

This is the Musical Arts Center. It was built in 1971. The MAC, as it's known, has 1,460 seats, a 90' by 60' stage and room for a 100-piece orchestra. I performed in the chorus in a production of Berlioz' The Damnation of Faust here. Good times. The backstage area is huge -- the university's site says the backstage area is more than half of the building. The seating is atypical: Long unbroken rows, a very shallow house (something like 20 rows deep) and three shallow balconies with boxes extending toward the stage on the sides. Even from the back of the house, you're almost on top of the stage compared to some other venues.

This is Peau Rouge Indiana, a sculpture by Alexander Calder that sits on the lawn of the MAC. I saw this thing pretty much every day I went to classes.

This is the Simon Music Center, as seen from across Jordan Ave. The building was originally built in 1951 and housed the School of Education and the laboratory school (and despite renovations, it looks it on the inside too -- wide hallways with music lockers lining themreminds one of high school). The School of Education got a new building and moved out in 1992, the Music School took it over in 1995.

This building houses two performance halls: Auer Hall, a 400-seat auditorium including balconies and a pipe organ, and Ford-CrawfordHall, a 100-seat recital hall. There is one large lecture hall where I had various interminable classes on music theory or ear training. Ithink choir may have been in there one semester too.

It also has the Cook Music Library, which is not only a traditional library (and my first experience with movable shelves!) but has anextensive digital library -- Variations (now Variations2 and soon to be Variations3...not real creative with the naming there...) -- whichcatalogs recordings, images of scores, midi files and even digitized notation files to be used with programs like Finale or Sibelius. Inaddition to all that, it (if I remember right) integrates with the rest of the library's collection, so if you search for a specific workyou'll also find hard copies, reviews and reference book entries. You can only access most of it from the library itself owing to rightsconcerns, but it's still pretty cool.

This is the fountain in front of Simon. I didn't realize it while I was attending, but on this visit I exited the building and it struckme that the fountain sounded like applause. Kind of cool.

This is the McKinney Fountain. I read someplace it's meant to represent a conductor (the tall guy in the middle) directing anorchestra (the long curvy guy with the fountains of various heights).

Here's one of the main entrances to Simon. You can see the University School nameplate above the door, the school seal at the top and themetalwork above the door.

This is another of the music buildings, the Music Annex. As far as I can tell, it was built in 1960. You can see the carillon at the top,which is occasionally used for practice (there's another carillon on campus too).

Here's another view of the Annex. It's very round -- the hallway inside is round as well. There are offices, classrooms, practice roomsand larger rehearsal rooms inside. I think my first college class ever may have been in this building. I also sang with the Singing Hoosierschoir here.

This is the front of the original music building, called Merrill Hall (the south side -- it faces 3rd street and is the opposite side ofwhere the Music Annex is hooked on). The building was completed in 1937. It has the names of composers inscribed around the top -- Bachis above the main entrance.

And here's a closer view of the front door of the music building. I was always a fan of the carving on the columns on the sides of thedoor (note the small "IU" symbol in the intersection) as well as the metalwork on the doors and lights next to the doors. Somewhat FrankLloyd Wright-ish. Also of note is the figure carved above the door -- there's a figure or symbol relating to music carved above eachentrance.

Here's one of the side entrances to the music building. You can see the treble clef over the door.

And finally, here's the area we're talking about. The Music Annex is an easy starting spot because it's round. Just south is Merrill Hall, the original Music Building. The building immediately east is Simon Music Center, and to the east of that building you can see the curve of the fountain. North of there is the MAC, and if you go a bit northeast, you'll see the parking garage where the first photo was shot from.

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I forget how I came across this blog, but it's not to be missed. Synopsis: An American woman marries a guy from the UK (and moves over there). She discovers he talks a lot in his sleep. And it's often hilarious. So, she records it, transcribes it and posts the recordings and transcriptions. (Note: Sometimes they contain an impressive amount of profanity) Here is one:

For want of a hyphen, I spend $20 on candy.

                     

Except not so much. The headline on the FDA's release, "Candy and Fruit Flavored Cigarettes Now Illegal in United States; Step is First Under New Tobacco Law" isn't terribly clear, but it was made worse by the addition of a hyphen between "fruit" and "flavored" in the blogs. That made it seem like, as I said above, candy cigarettes as well as fruit-flavored cigarettes were banned. That's certainly what I thought, and I even made the comment at work that it MUST mean that, because who's ever heard of candy-flavored cigarettes (now I want to get my hands on a blue raspberry Fun Dip-flavored Camel).

So without reading the original press release myself (lesson learned, my young friends, lesson learned) -- the text of which is perfectly clear, by the way: "a ban on cigarettes with flavors characterizing fruit, candy, or clove." -- I thought "wow, no more candy cigarettes ever!" I promptly set out to buy some. I saw lots of awesome graphic design on the packages (and some that's pretty terrible) and thought "I must document this for posterity!" Then I bought one of each.

The woman at the candy store asked if I was stocking up, whereupon I related the sad tale of the banned candy. No wonder she was so confused.

     

Whether a working streetcar will ever exist again in St. Louis I can't say, but thinking of the history is pleasant. That rail connected with a network that transported St. Louisans from all social and economic statuses, all neighborhoods, all walks of life around the region (I may be idealizing it, but it seems to me that our current system is much more segregated -- not that progress isn't being made). Iconically, to Forest Park for the 1904 World's Fair, recreationally to Sportsman's Park on North Grand or to the large department stores downtown, or vocationally to their offices or factories all around the region.

As it happens, my friend James Baker wrote a book about St. Louis streetcars called King Trolley and the Suburban Queens. It looks at the history of streetcars in St. Louis, with a particular focus on extending service from the city to Kirkwood and Webster Groves. It's got a ton of photos, first-person experiences of riding the streetcars, maps and if you want to delve in even further, footnotes.

But coincidentally, the back cover of the book features a photo shot by Wayne Leeman on May 21, 1966: A woman and child getting ready to board the Hodiamont car for the last streetcar ride in St. Louis. But what caught my eye is the clock hanging off the building in the background. It's on Olive too. It's just down the street from that newly exposed rail, where 44 years ago the last streetcar in St. Louis passed by.