Monthly Archives: November 2019

The official opening of Cohen House took place the day after Thanksgiving in 1927 but a smaller private dinner the evening before marked its true inauguration. Last year I talked about Dr. Lovett’s remarks at that dinner and this year … Continue reading →

Three nights in a row! I wish I’d been able to hear the one entitled “Constructive Fanaticism.” I’m pretty dubious about that. At first I mistakenly thought these were delivered by Rice biology professor Charles Philpott, but that immediately felt … Continue reading →

What the heck? When is this? Where is this? And why does Kinkaid get top billing? Bonus: The ghost of 204.

I’ve lamented at least a couple of times that I’ve never been able to find the original layout of Fondren’s basement. We have several pictures in the Woodson of the basement interior but I could never get a clear sense … Continue reading →

About a month ago I got a question about the original light fixtures in the cloisters in front of Mech Lab. With typical overconfidence I thought it would be a snap. I was quite wrong about that. Still, after the … Continue reading →

I spent most of my day on a fascinating light fixture puzzle and I am sore tempted to write about that tonight. But I’ve already scanned the rest of the March 22, 1988 slides so that’s what you’re going to … Continue reading →

I was squinting at a sheet of slides this afternoon when I noticed that they all had the same date stamp: March 22, 1988. They must have been taken by Tommy Lavergne, who would still have been a relative newcomer … Continue reading →

I stole that title from this 1920s-era article I found in a student scrapbook: I bet the cleanup was epic. Bonus: Spotted in Huff House. You first.

I’m on my way to Omaha for a meeting and I wish I could say that I was as excited about my flight as young Joan Wilson was about hers: Bonus:  I don’t really like Terminal B very much.  

Over the years I’ve amassed a nice collection of campus parking memos and other automobile-related altercations from a half-dozen universities. They are among the most unintentionally comic of all university communications (despite lots of competition in this genre) and I … Continue reading →