Let's See, Where Was I? Oh Yes, The Inhumanities Building

Picking up where I left off over a month ago...

(Where was I, you ask? Let's just say that after the semester I had, I needed a month of beer, smoked meats, live music, family and friends and not riding a bus all day. I would have written about what I was up to academically, but it was mostly more Thomas Hobbes and pretending to learn Latin, which is where I drew my intellectual line. I also would have written about all of the political mishegoss that is going on but, well, what does it matter which group of lunatics runs the asylum next. I have never voted for a winner yet and I have no intention of starting now. We have a whole year of that ahead of us yet. Oh well, on with the commentary already in progress)

I would update you on the situation but, sadly, there is little new to report. The holes are still in the roof, the thin layer of film (while not asbestos-laden, apparently) still comes back every few days, the hall is still stacked with various mold-encrusted acoustic tiles and the workmen
have not been seen in more than a month.

So, there's that.

If this building seems to have all of the problems that were endemic to Soviet housing projects of the, well, entire sorry Soviet period, why would anyone want to keep this thing around?

Not surprisingly, the preservationist charge is led by art critics.

They say that this 1968 design by architect Harry Weese is a great example ofb Brutalist architecture. This style is everything it's name implies. Stark lines, confusing floor plans, imposing vistas and concrete. Lots and lots of concrete.

They argue that this building, because of these, ahem, merits must be saved, use and users be damned.

O.K. I'll buy that with one stipulation.

All of those who want it saved can come and set up shop in the building for one whole year completely free of charge. I guarantee that within a few months, they might change their tune(perhaps the Music department buried in the bowels of the beast could help them with this?)

If the built environment cannot change with the needs of its users, its continued presence must be called into question. If it needs to be repurposed but is generally sound, then overhaul it. If has outlived its use, or never fit it to begin with, it's time to admit the failure, cut the losses and rethink the plan. Simple as that.

Well, as simple as destroying a block long hunk of steel and concrete ever gets.

In the meantime, we'll take some of those FEMA trailers they use for disasters. I'm confident that the heat is better and I know for sure the bathrooms are closer.

Artistically insensitive? Perhaps, but with the embarassingly low amount of money I get paid, I think I have some room to complain about the working conditions.

Nothing will be done about it, but hey, if blogging is about anything, it is about catharsis.

Really glad I'm back, aren't you?

Don't answer that.

Living In A Brutalist Meat Locker

This post might seem like it starts far away from where it ends. In that cause, I will tell you now that it discusses:

1. How cold my office is at present.
2. Why this has not yet been fixed.
3. Why architecture critics like Brutalist architecure and why no one else does.
4. Why some history isn't worth preserving.
5. Why the Mosse Humanities Building at UW-Madison must go now.

If all of that sounds interesting, read on. If not, well, you are here already, so might as well...

I am a gentleman of considerable carriage and a native Midwesterner. I have never even spent part of a winter in a place where the weather didn't have a regular dose of conditions that can kill you.

This means that I am never one to complain about the winter. Separates the sheep from the goats, climactically speaking.

A situation has developed, however, that has caused me to avoid a particular place because of the weather. You might be surprised to learn that this place is actually inside.

It is my office in the George L. Mosse Humanities Building on UW-Madison's campus.

The reason that I have had to avoid it is that the heat has been off, well, the whole time I have been here, really. It has never worked well. Now, though, it has been completely off since Monday and it is really no warmer inside than it is out.

The maintenance people have been doing, well, something for more than a week now. First, it involved tearing out the ceiling tiles, sawing holes in the ceiling and then pointing into those holes. Then, it involved disconnecting things inside the holes, taking them from the holes and then pointing at the things. Now, it involves banging and sawing other things in the holes, arguing about what to bang and saw next and then leaving for the day.

In that respect, it is a pretty typical union job. A lot of activity with very little achievement.

More broadly, however, as an almost three year inmate in the infamous "Inhumanities Building," I have always been with the pack that is baying to see it torn down. According to Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning and Management Al Fish, the building has cost more to maintain than it did to build in 1968. Fish also calls the building an "energy hog," points out that the concrete is cracking and chipping and relates the sad fact that the Music Department is housed largely underground where the temperature fluctuations destroy the instruments.

According to, well, damn near everyone I know who works/studies/maintains this building, it is always damp, it is cold in the winter, stifling in the summer, it lacks the rigging to clean the windows and it lacks natural light inside. In addition, to call the floor plan labyrinthine would pay it the undue comment of being intelligible at all and it lacks a central entrance and elevators and stairs are anything but intuitively placed.

From a maintenance standpoint, the heating, cooling, plumbing and electrical systems seem to be held together with duct tape and kind thoughts. Lastly, one must wonder about the use/wisdom of putting a five and a half storey breezway/courtyard in a building in Wisconsin.

I just know that you want to move in tomorrow. Bring gloves, a hat, some breadcrumbs (so that you can maybe find your way out), a stout pair of shoes and lots of patience.

Why, you ask, would anyone in their right mind want to save such a monstrosity? We will attack that subject in my next post.

Although I will tell you now that the people who do want to save it aren't in their right minds.

How could they be? They're art critics.

A Real Fright For Halloween? Try Historians Partying.

I know, it seems like two things that just do not go together. It does, however, occasionally happen.

Perhaps I am not being completely clear; for lots of historians, it never happens. For some, it happens so infrequently as to be a real shock to the system. For others, it is a weekly occurrence. No points for guessing which group I'm in with.

Taken by itself, last night's festivities were great. One of our number got the whole thing sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon. Holly is a wonderful human being and a credit to the "drinking crowd" in the department.

As ever, I had to wonder why more people didn't show up when free beer is offered. Moreso because, even if beer is not your thing (as hard as that is for me to understand), it is a big departmental social event when we can come together outside of an official setting and, well, get to know each other as people and not just historical fields of specialization.

At least that's how I view it.

Others cannot seem to take off the historian hat for ten minutes and talk about anything else. It's always "I'm working on this" or "I am presenting that" or "preparing for prelims sucks (which it does)." I work hard, but I am a big believer in the notion of not talking shop after hours.

I understand that there will be a certain amount of this. Hell, it is all of our somewhat inexplicable interest in people and times long gone that brings us together as a group. Then it hit me: is this all that we have in common? Is the only "tie that binds," so to speak, the fact that we all happen to do the same thing for a living?

In many similar situations, I think that this is exactly it. Think of any corporate social event and you'll see what I mean. Strained conversations about the Johnson account or what Ted in Finance did in the copy room or aren't Post-It Notes grand, that sort of thing. This has not always been the case, as it seems that lots of corporate events don't involve as much booze as they once did. There is much less awkward drunken dancing, photocopying of buttocks (among other things) and watching the people who went home with each other avoid the subject on Monday morning.

There was plenty of booze at this thing last night, so that wasn't it.

So, does that make us, the history graduate students, different from other sets of people that work together. Well, yes and no.

No because of what I said before. What ties us together as a group seems to be precious little. But it is that precious little that I think is so interesting and infuriating at the same time.

We all do a job that is not something that most people in the general population care about or know a whole lot about. It is not normal (by many standards) to dedicate eight years of your life to something that pays rather poorly, makes you move all over the country and have regular and sustained contact with college students, an interesting group in and of themselves (I know: I was one). Does this make us special? No. Different, it would seem so.

What I want to know the most about my colleagues is, well, what got them here and do they do anything else than history stuff. The former desire springs more from curiosity than anything else. I was compelled to do this for a living and I want to know what drove others to the same decision. The latter springs from the first in that the "academic personality" is a fascinating phenomenon.

This personality type, such as it is, is a mix of many good and bad things (just like most people, I guess) that make us what we are and how we are percieved by others and ourselves. The admirable things come in the form of dedication to trying to answer some of those big picture questions like "who am I?" and "where did I come from?" It also comes from the notion that, at least as far as the humanities are concerned, we try and enrich those areas of life that make the whole damnable business of existence worth bearing. That is us at our best.

Then there's the bad stuff. The pretension, the elitism, the feelings that what we do is (in the larger scheme of things) not all that important. The embarassingly low pay doesn't help either.

So, where does that leave us? It shows that historians (and a lot of acedemics in general) might seem like a breed apart, like radically different sorts of people than "everyone else." Really, though, we are not. Lots of my colleagues don't like to admit it, but we are just people, trying to make our way through a world that doesn't make sense a lot of the time. We like to pretend that, in some way, we have a better grasp of things and have a deeper understanding of the world as a whole.

We don't, really.

All we do is look at the world with an interesting set of eyes and hopefully shine some light on issues and problems that face us all as we deal with the world around us. Or, to put it another way, historians are people too.

Sometimes we in the field need a reminder of this. Having this reminder in the form of a monumental piss-up doesn't hurt either.

Until you wake up on Ted from Finance's bathroom floor, that is.

Badger Game, Approximately

Right now, the Badgers are in the midst of their second game of the year against the Michigan State Spartans...should be a good one.

Wait, you say, why isn't Will at Camp Randall, like every football Saturday?

Well, I was there, but am not now. Let me explain.

Camp Randall Stadium holds about 82,000 people, about 25-30,ooo of that is the student sections. That is where I sit for most games. That is where I was to sit today (Section P, Row 20, Seat 36 to be precise). So far, so good.

I am inside the stadium, I am going to my seat and, as ever, there is someone sitting there. No problem, I'll just ask one of the friendly Per-Mar Security people to eject the interloper from my seat and we can get on with the show.

Upon asking the aforementioned Per-Mar person, I was told that there was plenty of room in rows above and to seek a seat there. Not something they normally do, but allright. I make my way to near the top of Section P and find a seat as instructed.

Does this clip need any set-up?

The people with the tickets for the seats that I commandeered showed up. I explained politely that I was told to find another spot as it is nigh on impossible to move thirty rows of people and that, as a matter of fact, I was not staying for the whole game (I am even now waiting for a bus to Milwaukee) and that, if they could handle the squeeze for about forty-five minutes, I would be gone.

They were having none of it. I was told, and I quote, "get out of our fucking seats, you fat asshole!"

Well, I never...

I left the seats, deciding that a fight with these people (drunk, but with no notion of how to deal with it) was not advisable as I was just one. I again sought out security, and they did offer to get me to my original seat, but by this point, I was so angry that I suggested to the people who displaced me some possible erotic activites to take place with their mothers and left Camp Randall, walked the several blocks to the Humanities Building and here I am.

What will come of this? An angry letter from me to Barry Alvarez, John Wiley, and Per-Mar Security that will be ignored.

What should have happened? Either I should have been given my seat the first time I asked for it or the fuckwads that made me move should have understood how game days go at Camp Randall and found another seat in the section.

According to the radio, I am missing a hell of a game.

So, to Per-Mar Security (for their idiotic employees), the UW Athletic Department (for not making the student sections general admission) and the amateur drinker assfuckers who caused this I say that I would not give you a squirt of my piss if you were dying of thirst.