Sam Cooke’s 1962 hit song “A Wonderful World”contains the following verse: “Don’t know much about geography/Don’t know much trigonometry/Don’t know much about algebra/Don’t know what s slide rule is for/But I know that one and one is two/And if this one could be with you/What a wonderful world this would be.”
This wonderful world still doesn’t know much about Geography, judging by what happened to the Department’s sponsorship of a chalk drawing at this year’s I Madonnari. You’ve probably guessed what I’m leading up to–yep, the I Madonnari organizers stenciled “Dept. of Geology”on top of our plot, despite the fact that I’d written “Geography”on the initial application and repeated it when I phoned in to verify the name of the sponsor. Other issues aside, this is a major reason to “brand”the department’s name, and I think we did a good job of that in terms of our participation in I Madonnari (after wasting over an hour redoing the sponsor name).
An estimated 25,000 people visited the Mission over the three-day weekend, and our rendition of Susanna’s Mission Bells in the Water Lilies got a lot of attention and applause. Best of all, Susanna was able to see it herself! She was delighted that lots of spectators looked at the chalk drawing and then went over to the fountain to see the reflection themselves, and she had a good laugh when told that one spectator wanted to know why the “courthouse”was “upside down.”“There’s always one,”Susanna quipped.
A major round of applause is in order for all of the volunteers that made this project possible. The chalk drawing was virtually finished by 3 pm Saturday, thanks to sterling efforts by Dylan Prentiss (grad), Val Norrington (my wife), Daniela Soleri and her daughter Xina (Daniela is a researcher scientist in ES and Geography), Connie Padilla (staff), Maral Tashjian (intern), Keith Clarke (Chair), and Jennifer Bowen (staff). Further thanks are due to Ann Ricchiazzi (ex-staff), Mark Grosch (staff), Jim Marston (post doc), and Meryl Wieder (ex-staff) who provided moral support. Dylan and Keith get gold stars for arriving early and staying late on Saturday, and Val gets Susanna’s special thanks for spending another four hours on the project on Monday in order liven the drawing up and assuage her artistic sensibilities.
A final note from Susanna: “Thank you so much. I am greatly honored. Humbly, Your artist.”
