The These Are (Still) Fabulous Times for September - November 2006

Life as Lived Ninety Miles from Anywhere

Taken at Macomb's Contemporay Sculpture Collection in Chandler Park.

Todd Price, Macomb boulevardier, handsome, smart, suave, good at amusing himself (and others) seen at Peter Cole's end-of-summer-party

One of our new favorite people, Debra Alwardt, at Peter Cole's end-of-summer party

One sign that summer is over: overflowing ashtrays on campus.

Moments when you suddenly realize you're becoming an antique (one hopes a valuable one): realizing this is what school buses look like now.

At first I thought this was the homecoming poster created by the gay students group. Alas, not.

Apparently the Undergraduates are devoted to Marilyn Monroe. These are three , and separate, homecoming posters featuring Monroe.

In late October the Eerily Reverent Amy Carr (aka "The Czarina) cheerily confronted what passes for "nature" at Everly Park.

Alley West Side of Square Begs Question: What is Beyond the Green Door? Honestly, I am not sure, but it's a cool door. I must confess: I never saw the film.

Local politico, Anne Burton, works the phones at Phil Hare's HQ on Election Day. Hare, a Democrat, demolished Andrea Zinga, the Republican candidate.

View from a bed (not mine)

Sequels

Kiely Weaver at 1 Year

Matthew Stovall at 1 Month

Anne and Ilon's baby (on left) t-minus 2 months and counting. Anne is due in December. This was taken in late September.

It looks like a window in Oranjestad, Aruba (but it's Macomb)

I love the city pool. Angular, sun obsessed (note the tanning deck, the vast expanse of unshaded white concrete) era, when no one worried about skin cancer, Vogue showcased truly fabulous clothes, the Seagrams building was not yet endlessly copied, and people said things like, "Super!" I hope they never modernize this space.

I have no idea what this means, but I saw it on a blackboard during a General Education Review Committee Sub Committee meeting and knew I was in presence of certainty. It provided a nice counterpoint to the meeting, which was a celebration of indeterminacy.

You never know what you are going to when you take a walk. The Eerily Revernt Amy Carr and I were taking a walk down Adams Street, talking about Schopenhauer or, maybe, Shakira or, perhaps, Gen Ed (we really do, no kidding, argue about Gen Ed quite a bit), when suddenly I looked up and saw the above scrawled in the street. I didn't know what make of it. It's transgressive but ambiguous. It's also amusing in counterpoise to its leafy, suburban context (we hadn't reached the student ghetto) and yet also alarmingly appropriate.

Macomb has dozens of trains pass through it each day. This is one of the signal boxes that apparently produces a ringing sound at a crossing.

Small Town Conceptual Art Work

Local minx, Elisa Rasmussen (the Baby Whisperer), cashes in a year's worth of change. $495.80. It went to help pay for a front loading washing machine,

Q

Taken during Macomb's Al Sears Jazz Festival. Rather F.Q. looking for those in the N.O.

Taken at Al Sears Jazz Festival

Stars on North Lafayette

Anne Burton saluting Susan Czechowski's Contribution to the Church and State group show in Davenport.

Le Cote de Amy Carr

Seen on West Carrol Street right before being accosted by some drunken undergrads who were really scary

Rod Shumaker works on a cape for the Haunted House Tour

Not taken on St. Charles Avenue but in front of Sherman Hall

The obligatory gorgeous autumn picture. This is in front of Malpass Library.

Monsignor Richard Pricco is a model train enthusiast. This is part of a model town he construced and through which the train travels.

This is the Chicago Room, a meeting room in the Student Union, where I happen to spend an inordinate amount of time in various committees. It is one of the less known meeting rooms, but popular among the congoscenti of tedium.The Chicago Room has a cocoon like quality, a hyperbolic clinical ugliness bordering on self parody that achieves sublimity at times. Although for the Cardinal Oak Room wins hands down for abjection. If ever you want to experience claustrophobia, paranoia, hoplessness, and inanity, simply drop into the Cardinal Oak Room.

It is a little known fact (possibly because it is an entirely imaginary fact--but then some entirely imgainary facts are very well known) that Macomb has a Henry Moore in Chandler Park.

We also admired the Donald Judd (one of several in town) located just north of the Macomb Library Parking Lot.

We saw this on the way to Mass. Then, the flower below. Both are sublime.

This is the Faculty Senate moments before debating a proposal to support the Western Organization for Women's desire to have lactation facilities created on campus for women who need to express breast milk. WOW (I am co president) assumed this would be an easy sell. But, alas, no. The resolution did pass in the end. Huge thanks to Lora Ebert Wallace for leading the charge.

Nancy Kwang Johnson (ask her about her recent trips to Japan and Korea) and Thomas Allen Harris (director of 12 Disciples of Nelson Mandela) at the after party for Harris' discussion of his film, part of the Western Illinois African Film Festival which WIU and Monmouth College co-sposnored. Nancy was one of the organizers of the festival.

Speaking of organizers (of the West Illinois African Film Festival) and of Africa. The Fab Times also ran into Heather Brady of Monmouth College and Peter Cole at the same after party. Peter and Heather will be living in Dar el Salaam starting December 30th or so. They will return in the summer of 2007.

Another African film auteur, Manthia Diawara, director of Who's Afraid of Ngugi?, and Jan Welsch.

Here was the poster for the Festival, created by the Fab Times design department

Helen Hoing long time (and, now, retired) sixth grade teacher at the WIU Lab School and friend of the Fab Times. She celebrated her 92nd birthday on November 2nd.

Karen Mann and Judy Dalinger at Matt and Courtney Blankenship's western themed Halloween Party.

This appropriately ghostly image was taken of the recently engaged (yes, as in "to be married") C. T. Weiss at the Blankenship Halloween party.

Fabtimes Super Star, Marcy Allen, at the Paint The Town Pink event.

Cy Twombly Sculpture

Penny Kelsey in Elgin, Illinois, attending the CARLI Bibliographers' Meeting. This the meeting you attend if you want to write a grant to create a collection. Penny is working on two collections, a film grant themed around "Indigenous Peoples" and a print collection themed around "Emerging Voices" in contemporary literature.

This tiny graveyard to be found at the edge of the Moon Lake (yes, just like in Streetcar Named Desire) trailer park.

Local organic farmer, yoga teacher, mom, and director of WIU's Peace Corps Fellows (did we mentino she was also a Peace Corps Volunteer at one time?), Karen Mauldin Curtis at Karen and Sean's annual housewarming party.

Muralist, labyrinth designer, community activist, Spanish teacher, mom, and sometime matchmaker, Kelly Quin at Sean and Karen's annual housewarming party.

Bradley Dilger showing off the feet of Madeline Dilger (who has recently learned to walk and is avidly using said feet).

On another night at another party, the hands of Bradley Dilger.

Former Great Abstainer and current Retiree and Investment Guru, Adam Chacksfield, and Christine The Amazing World Traveler (ask her about riding a bus across the Congo) at Sean and Karen's Housewarming Party

Chad, manager of Sullivan Taylors, and Haunted House Tour guide (here as tour guide, not manager of Sullivan Taylors)

Haunted House Tour Guides (we plan to go on November 18th)

French Professor, world traveller, film festival organizer, sophisticate and smartypants, Heather Brady posing with her constant companion, Zoe (a notorious flirt).

Betsy Perabo and Amy Carr hand out programs before a lecture intending to prove (or, perhaps, provoke) the existence of God.

Adam Chacksfield and Christine Iwanicki at Sandy and Jessica McFadden's

If you have ever wondered what a union meeting looks like. Here ya go.Above Mike Romano, Craig Tollini, Holly Garbo, and Cecelia Bennet listen to Gayle Carper explain Windshield Time, a benefit that many faculty don't take though they are entitled to. Actually, of all the meetings I attend, union meetings are the most interesting. Gen Ed Review meetings are usually the most amusing. Library Dept meetings the most surprising.

Handsome stranger at Shazia's party for Eng Dept grads students.