The following in an excerpt from Tina Fey’s book Bossypants. You may be wondering, “why is Reenie blogging about Tina Fey’s book on her thesis blog?”
That answer begins by filling you in on what hasn’t been posted in the last few weeks. A week and a half ago I had my first interim review, which bombarded me with advice and good criticism. I could have filled you in earlier, but I’m glad I waited, because from the work since then, my thesis has become much clearer. I am now working on programming – emphasizing on the quantitative, but still very interested in the qualitative. Here’s where Tina Fey comes in. I’ve been reading her book for fun at a glacier’s pace (for about a year and half) and I’ve just come to a part where she is describing her family Christmas pilgrimages to her husband’s hometown. Her description is an excellent specific view of the qualitative contrast between urban and rural life.
We always pull up carefully, making sure not to run over any outdoor cats. (One of the best-kept secrets of “country life” is that people accidentally crush their own pets a lot.)
The house is cozy warm from the wood-burning heater. There are hugs and kisses and pies and soup and ham and biscuits and a continuous flow of Maxwell House coffee with nondairy creamer. We City Folk can pretend that we prefer the rotgut from Starcorps with skim milk and Splenda, but who are we kidding? Maxwell House with French vanilla corn syrup cannot be beat.
If there’s one thing that my husband’s hometown has that St. Barts does not, it’s the water. “Legally potable” doesn’t quite capture it. Straight from the tap it smells like… How can I describe it? – if you boiled ten thousand eggs in a prostitute’s bathwater. It turns jewelry green, but it leaves your hair soft and manageable. So, while I couldn’t find it in St. Barts, I could probably sell it there. (Fey 247-248)
My own project seems to portray an idealized rural life right now in comparison to this, but I think it’s a valid description. I spoke with Professor Ann Ziebarth in Housing Studies after Dewey Thorbeck’s lecture on his book Rural Design: A New Design Discipline. Professor Ziebarth told me about teaching the perceptions of rural life versus the reality of rural life. Tina Fey’s view of rural life as someone who resides in the city seemed like a good description of some of the realities.
This photo shows both the beauty and idealization of the barn, but if you look closely in the background also exhibits the carcass of a pigeon which had been eaten by a cat.
On another note, I would like to personally thank Tina for praying for her daughter to be an architect:
Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance.
Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes.
And not have to wear high heels.
What would that be Lord? Architecture? (Fey 262)
On another, another note, I would also like to promote watching Alain De Botton’s lecture on his book The Architecture of Happiness. I read part of the book years ago, but never finished. My professor suggested watching him speak about it via youtube videos. It’s great to see a non-architect speak about architecture and talk about things like style, things being pretty, and associations our minds make with aesthetics. These things sometimes seem taboo to talk about in architecture school, but I think it’s important to try and figure out why we are attracted to things and why other people might be. I especially liked his question of looking at a design and asking, “What would someone who liked this building be afraid of?” I’d like to think that someone who liked my project would be afraid of being too introverted, or afraid of static life, or maybe just afraid of factory farming… right now there are a lot of things they might be afraid of, but it seems like an interesting lens to look at my project through.
Fey, Tina. Bossypants. New York: Reagan Aurther Books, 2011. Print.
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