New Word: Barfitecture

Somone -- maybe it was Ezra Pound, maybe it was James Kunstler -- said "ugliness is entropy made visibe". Doesn't matter. People say lots of things. That's just one example.

Anyway, whoever said it, he or she was wrong. Some things are just born ugly -- maybe by accident, maybe by design. Again, doesn't matter. Point I'm trying to make is new things can be ugly too.

Which brings me to my new word: barfitecture.

Apparently, I'm not the first person to think of the term, but it popped into my head unbidden as I was strolling the grounds of my old alma mater on the weekend.

Seems they've been doing a litte remodelling on campus. Here's what they've come up with. It's a monstrous edifice that immediately summons your attention from literally any vantage. The picture here? That's the best angle it's got. To experience the full horror, you have to see it from across the river. Or from the bridge. Or from River Road heading north. Or south.

I don't know what this building's for, but I can't imagine what could possibly take place inside of this structure for it to in any way reflect, echo, or in any other way relate to it's hideous form.

"Alright class, in today's lecture we'll be taking Ikea furniture and turning it inside-out."
"I'm sorry Professor, but isn't this big ugly box-making 101?"
"Oh, I'm afraid you're in the wrong lecture theatre. You need to go down the hall and it's the first left after Professor Kitchen's advanced seminar in aesthetics for the blind..."

The picture doesn't truly capture the proper hue of the building either. Apparently, they want to pass it off as earth-tone ochre in the promotional images they send out. In reality, it's more of a yellow...baby-barf yellow I'll call it, since I saw a picture that amusingly captures the shade.

Seriously, buildings take a long time to build, don't they? Is it even imaginable that it wasn't deliberately planned from the outset for this horrible, horrible building to look so bad? Did the architect manage conceal a crippling drinking problem when he got the contract? Was the building constructed in secrecy? Under a tent or possibly a large sheet? How could anyone not have seen what was being erected on the campus grounds and not have tried to put a stop to it?

I wonder how the meeting went when the builder announced that he/she was finished.
"Uhhh, you're done? Really? Holy shit...what the hell do you call this thing?
"(pause, jazz hands)...The Aristocrats!"

New word: Munchkiavellian

I wanted to introduce you to my new word: Munchkiavellian. It denotes the underhanded political maneuverings of munchkins. It can be used in any situation where people with little power do what little they can to get as many people as possible to do what they want.

I did a Google search and no one's ever used it before. It's so...so pure. So elegant. So simple. I lurve it. And it's mine. All mine. So remember, if you didn't see it here first, someone else did.

I love it because it captures a common, everyday social phenonon which had heretofor gone without a name. Now, we'll know what to call it when a line manager puts his staff to work on a useless project designed to impress his/her boss's boss. Or when a co-worker exploits the single tiny operational detail entrusted to him or her to bring the team to a halt at every decision-point, we can now describe that type of behaviour.

*Gasp* It's a perfect adjective to describe Stephen Harper's minority government! Gee. Well gosh, I had no idea I was performing such a valuable public service...I guess it was worth the two month wait since my last entry.