Yeah, we're building a race of frog-people. It's a good time

Xander ,'Selfless'


Natter 55: It's the 55th Natter  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


§ ita § - Dec 12, 2007 7:55:49 am PST #6864 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Please ice, shrift. That much pain needs it. The sooner the better.

what is sushi a symbol of?

Four or five of us would go out regularly for it once a week. We haven't really been eating together in a few months for one reason or another, even partially. Hopefully we will be reunited next week. I am reasonably sappy in this regard.


Fred Pete - Dec 12, 2007 8:05:21 am PST #6865 of 10001
Ann, that's a ferret.

My college's big rival is Number 7. And while I wouldn't give Drexel any beauty prizes, it also isn't the ugliest I've seen.


JZ - Dec 12, 2007 8:13:55 am PST #6866 of 10001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

As some of the commenters noted, the 20-ugliest reviewer has a serious hate-on for modern architecture. None of the pictures evoked any kind of classic Ivy League serene loveliness, but some of them were just... modern. Kind of cool, just not ivy and bricks and dramatic archways.

And I can't believe my college got snubbed on the 20 most beautiful list. Pepperdine, the single most beautiful college campus in the entire US? Please. It's pretty and all, but it's not all that and a bag of words, and certainly not all that and a bag of words more than every other college in the country.


amych - Dec 12, 2007 8:19:43 am PST #6867 of 10001
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

My college's big rival is Number 7.

And it's a very ugly place... but the part I found odd with that choice is that they could've picked from plenty of much, much uglier buildings to use as an illustration. That's actually one of the better ones.

As some of the commenters noted, the 20-ugliest reviewer has a serious hate-on for modern architecture. None of the pictures evoked any kind of classic Ivy League serene loveliness, but some of them were just... modern.

I actually thought they did a fair job of distinguishing modern-that-failed from just-plain-looks-like-a-bunker. Not that there was no anti-modern bias there, but it was a bit more nuanced than just "you only like fakey-gothic (or fakey-georgian)" as some of the comments would have it.

Signed, slow day, thinking way too much about this.


-t - Dec 12, 2007 8:21:39 am PST #6868 of 10001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Mine is 14. i knew it would be on there. The most common architectural feature is, after all, one called a wart. Mmmm, cinderblock.

I figured bear cans were theose things that you put your food in that bears can't open unless they have a quarter. Which would be an odd thing to collect, but, hey, dream.


P.M. Marc - Dec 12, 2007 8:28:01 am PST #6869 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

I'm shocked that my college didn't make the list.

We fugly: [link]


JZ - Dec 12, 2007 8:28:08 am PST #6870 of 10001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

I actually thought they did a fair job of distinguishing modern-that-failed from just-plain-looks-like-a-bunker.

Ehn, I really disliked the sneering at UCSD and the other CA colleges, all of which certainly have their share of now-dated mid-century-to-70s modern stuff but also a lot of really striking work. I really kind of liked the building in the picture the author chose to demonstrate UCSD's obscene ugliness.

Dressing and decorating and painting our apartment and trying to make Hec's knickknack and art collection and mine make sense together over the last couple of years have all made me spend much too much time in "thinking way too much about this" mode, and about the line between "It's absolutely not my style, but I recognize its value" and "It's a piece of ugly crap and I hate it." I can't even point to where that line lies, but I did get a vague sense from reading the 20-best and 20-worst lists together that the listmaker is somewhere on the far side of it.


Susan W. - Dec 12, 2007 8:29:31 am PST #6871 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

No way Drexel is the ugliest college. We used to call them Orange Brick U, but the orange brick buildings aren't ugly, just...bright. And I don't know what Bama is doing on the most beautiful list. It's just kind of generically collegiate, IMHO.


Frankenbuddha - Dec 12, 2007 8:36:11 am PST #6872 of 10001
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"

I'm kinda shocked Northeastern got the nod over B.U., but maybe we need an actual campus to be considered. Some of the acadmic buildings are nice, but Warren Towers looks like a prison block.


Susan W. - Dec 12, 2007 8:36:51 am PST #6873 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

The campuses I know best, Penn and UW, are a mixture of the gorgeous and unfortunate, which, in a way, gives them a nice, lived-in look. They've grown over time and so have buildings reflecting a variety of architectural trends, budget crunches and splurges, and the like.

And I do tend to prefer old-school architecture to the modern kind--sometimes I feel like my aesthetic century is the 18th, and none of the fashions have been quite as beautiful after 1815 or so, be they music, architecture, clothing, or whatever. But I definitely differentiate between "not my style, but attractive for what it is" and "OMG WTF were they thinking?!"