Usually I have a pretty good idea where we'll be and what we'll be doing--but between having a visitor in class one day, a film, and a few chapters of Stilgoe we haven't discussed, and a mess-up in days the class meets, I'm working at least partly on hope here. Because I do have you back-to-back this week it seems like a good time to put Mr. Blandings builds his dream house back on the agenda. It's too long for one showing, but I think if I give us about 15 minutes of it today I'll have it at a fairly logical stopping place. It is online at yet another website (though it may not be by the time you go to sneak a peek at it. I'll bring the video and not take a chance on the electronics coming through. Below you'll see it (maybe) courtesy of Metacafe. If this video disappears, you'll still find a lot of interesting things at Metacafe, which isn't as well known as YouTube or Vimeo.
Meanwhile, back at the Crabgrass Frontier, you'll notice our focus is shifting back a bit more to the idea of the house--the "family temple" as Robert Stern called it in the video we watched last week. In the chapter on board, you'll meet Andrew Jackson Downing, Catherine Beecher, and Calvert Vaux. You heard Vaux and Downing mentioned in the video. Beecher was the sister of the more famous Harriet Beecher Stowe. I'm asking you to read Downing at the link above. We have an Andrew Jackson Downing house in Bristol, less than a mile from campus, but the Google Street Finder View isn't very clear. Below is an example of a house of his in New Bedford, on the market for only a bit more than a half million.
I'm not requiring you to read Catharine Beecher's The American Woman's Home, but I'm hoping you'll stick your nose in it and prowl around. The illustrations are very illuminating. So is the text. The book is available as a free e-book from Google Books. Can't beat the price, can you?
For THURSDAY, February 23
Hmmm. Seems like I just saw you yesterday. Wait! I DID just see you yesterday. We'll finish off Mr. Blandings today, hopefully with a little discussion time. How is Tracy Kidder coming???
