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Photo illustration by Julie Reynolds. See some pretty cool items from the university's Special Collections, beginning on page 19. this page Brian Ernst '1 3 (the newly elected ASUPS president!) plays Major-General Stanley in the School of Music's wicked-fun production of The Pirates of Penzance, on campus Feb. 9-12. Photo by Ross Mulhausen. For more of Ross' pics of campus activities this semester and last, turn to page 8 ; ■ : from the president ' / * 5 E u £ ■S ■ I 3 1 £ 1 =3I "5 E .1 3: 5 E 2 ! 2 arches spring 2012 I One for the ages I love pretentious movies. Or maybe I just history unfold, carefully making their notes of human experience into the library, even ! love movies that make no excuse about being and diligently filing their reports. The story as they take the library out into the world. serious and important, that strive to express comes to focus on one particular angel whose When I see our faculty and students labor­ a strong sense of meaning, that make me compassion for people is so great that he finds ing away at their maple desks, mesmerized in think. I actually really liked this year’s Oscar- himself wishing he could shed his wings and the glow of a computer screen, or sprawled nominated The Tree of Life, for example, even fall into mortality; this angel wants to enjoy across couches, I imagine them accompanied though I think I drifted off during part of the the pleasures and pains of human experience. by angelic beings in black trench coats right dinosaur section. I admired Terrence Malick’s He wants to love and feel loss, as people do— beside them. Always there, like the silent voices willingness to make a poetic and difficult in Technicolor. These become the wings of his of the angels, miraculously whispering the movie that sought to show the interconnect­ desire. best that has been thought and said of human edness of all of life in a complicated and lyri­ If you have seen the movie, you will recall culture and history, bringing it in and sending cally told story about a dysfunctional family my favorite, recurring scene. On their time it out over Ethernet wings and the integrated in 1950s America, and the quest of a young off, the angels tend to gather in one place: the circuits of human curiosity and desire. man for meaning, forgiveness, and faith. Of vast, cathedral-like public library in Berlin, Understanding that we live in the age of course it could never actually have won an the Staatsbibliothek. Like I said, the movie is information technology and distance learn­ Oscar. Too pretentious. But Tree of Life did pretentious—made, perhaps, just for an Eng­ ing, in a time of the virtual classroom, and remind me, somehow, of another favorite lish professor and bibliophile like me. Anyway, even of the digital book, for my money Puget movie of mine that stirred the same sense of throughout the movie we keep coming back Sound’s great asset remains its identity as a admiration back in the 1980s: Wim Wenders’ to the impressive, multistoried atrium of this particular place, with a rich and textured his­ Wings of Desire. That was pretentious, too. magnificent library and see that the rows tory, made by quite-real people who live and No Academy Award there, either. But I just of bookcases are literally filled with angels. learn together. Here, on a 100-acre plot of loved it. Still invisible to all but children (and us), the ground made into great spaces, we don’t just If you haven’t seen it, the movie fol­ angels would be sitting in clusters all over the have access to the network in rooms or on the lows the movements of a group of angelic grand staircase, leaning against the large classi­ quad, we can be inspired to learn together in beings who watch over human events in cal pillars of the lobby, and even hanging from personal, supportive settings that offer a kind Berlin, filmed before the Wall came down its glorious chandeliers. Angels permeate the of road map through the tangled intersections and Germany was unified. They have wings. library, and they are always reading. But the of the information highway and a laboratory The title of the original German version was most interesting thing is that we do not just for practicing what we learn. Collins is not so Der Himmel iiber Berlin, or The Sky Over see them, we hear them, too, right alongside much a storehouse of books and data as a fully Berlin. While these angels can mingle with the human readers around them. As their eyes wired portal to a whole new world of knowl­ the people of the Earth, able to listen in on move across the pages, we can hear a cacoph­ edge and possibility, a place where informa­ human thoughts and emotions, they remain ony of voices speaking in whispered tones in tion is not just discovered, but tried out and completely invisible and inaudible to all mor­ every possible language. They are reading the tested. tals—except, mysteriously, to children, who words of Homer and Hamlet, Plato and Poe, A library is one big special collection, a can see them quite clearly. The purpose of Einstein and Darwin, Tolstoy and Tennyson, heavenly thing, a place where angels whis­ these angelic beings, as one of them affirms, the Upanishads and the Book of John. We can per and the tree of life grows and grows. We is to “assemble, testify, and preserve” human hear in those voices’ barely distinguishable have a good one, where great things happen experience for some unseen and unspecified murmurings all the wisdom of all the ages every day and where, true to our mission, we higher power. You can tell who the angels are humming in that angelic hall. “assemble, testify, and preserve” the wisdom of because they all wear long, dark trench coats I can’t help but think of those scenes, and the past with an eye on the future and on what i and only appear in black and white. even hear the echoes of those sounds, when­ we will make of it. Nothing pretentious about Here’s the thing: While they are free to ever I walk into Collins Library. Bound into that. And much better than a movie, no mat­ move at will through the air and in build­ our more than half-million volumes are the ter how good it might be. The library is where ings or any place on Earth, the angels are whispering words of wisdom from the ages. we live with the ages, and the angels. constrained from changing human events. And within the impressive brick walls and bay But they are able to offer consolation and windows of Collins’ Tudor-Gothic architec­ comfort, guidance and encouragement, and ture, and behind its oak paneling and leather they feel deep compassion as they witness furniture, are the invisible wires and networks the often tragic developments of human that magically bring millions more volumes Ronald R. Thomas I : spring 2012 arches 3 letters Remembering Professor Anderson of hair, which he joked about to us. He stood I last saw Norm during the memorial ser­ T read with great sadness about the passing of there and smeared the goop into his hair. This vice for his colleague Stewart Lowther in the JL Professor Norman Anderson [ Arches, winter made him look really weird and unfamiliar, so mid-2000s. Norm was my instructor during 2012]. No doubt many former students will we told him, forget it. We like you the way you Winterim 1972 and for “Geomorphology” check in with memories of him, but in case are. He laughed and thanked us anyway. in spring 1974.1 also was Norm’s lab- and no one else relates it, here’s a story that must Darleen Rowland Dhillon '62 teacher-assistant. be told: The Glutz Theory of non-support. Berkeley, Calif. David W. Abbott '74 Briefly, this theory, totally made up by Pro­ Oakland, Calif fessor Anderson, posits that matter cannot remain unsupported in the physical realm. For The author is senior hydrogeologist at Daniel B. example, if there is a mine shaft (“Do you want Stephens & Associates. a happy ending or a sad ending?” he would ask the class) the geologic forces will do their thing—the plates underground inevitably will A car that fits shift and rocks will move, maybe offing a min­ "IV /Ty son, Jarek, graduated from UPS in ing crew.