Songs & Places

Songs & Places. I've mentioned the class a number of times now--so let me show you a picture from one of our Thursday evenings. Visual Studies 185X: Songs and Places--American Roots. Must be in 2007 or 2008. That's Joe McBride, to the right, a good friend, visiting from Landscape Architecture. And me just behind the cart, with guitar, sitting in the wooden chair--same chair I'm sitting in now as I write this! On the left, also with guitar, is Anthony Bello, then a grad student, who helped me with the course in all kinds of ways. (We chose the original songs and recordings for the class--see S&P Songbooks--and later had a band (with Steph and Urs), Tony and the Scholars. The setting is the old Room 170, looking its best here, with the original incandescent track lights washing the walls--and work made by each of the students pinned up all around. Over the tables (the beautiful, heavy, maple-topped Wurster seminar tables) is our hooded lamp--I always made sure to bring it--a kind of campfire for those gatherings.

The evening hasn't gotten particularly rowdy yet--looks like we were concentrating on the lyrics--that's why everyone's head is down. It was a big group--over twenty--and things could get wild (depending in part on whether there was wine and food later on!) But we'd start around the table together like this, do some songs, look at some images, then take a break and return to look at everyone's work...

I'm grateful for the photograph--have no idea who took it. Captures something essential about those evenings... As much in the quality of the light and the feeling of the room as a whole...

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