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(Tenured Radical)

Thursday, October 19, 2006

A City Campus in the Evening

I'm rarely on campus after dark; I teach early, meet with students, and leave in the late afternoon. But last night I went to an early evening gathering of faculty involved in creating a new honors curriculum, and afterwards, as I walked through the quads to the Foggy Bottom metro, the place buzzed and glittered all around me.

It was a clear, mild autumn night,
and as I walked past this folly,

























which appeared out of the blue on the
main quad a few years ago, I watched a
group of students sitting in it sharing
a hookah. The smoky air they made
deepened the atmospherics.

The quad was like a dark walled garden
in which other students, beautiful in dark
clothes, revolved around the folly.
The women's faces were freshly painted.
Posted at: 10/19/2006 02:56:00 PM