By
Shaun Clayton
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The UA campus has slowly but surely become one of the greatest examples of expressionistic art since Fritz Lang created the film "Metropolis" in the 1920s. The genius behind this work of art is none other than University of Arizona President Peter Likins.
Most students, in their ignorance, would agree that the name "Likins" and the word "genius" do not go together, much in the same way that "Ghandi" and "steak-sauce" do not go together. Those students should perhaps look deeper at what is being done to the university campus, herein referred to as the "University Canvas."
A few years ago, the University Canvas was comprised of fully-intact buildings, thousands of feet of unimpeded travel and adequate parking for all. Now, the old ideas of "order," "common sense" and "stress-free university commuting" have been smashed to glorious bits in favor of a brilliant new emotionally-driven paradigm, free from the confines of "logic."
Take the case of the Student Union. The very name "Union" implies togetherness and unity. Tacked onto that was "Student" which means, "one who does not sleep." Within the building was Sam's Place, a place for coin-operated recreation, and the Gallagher Theater, a large, comfortable place for viewing films. Such was the way of things for well over 20 years.
But with a mighty smash like Hercules on "Jerry Springer," Likins destroyed these places of fun and stability, shattering conventions of "sentimentality" and "intelligence." This then jarred the people to the cold-hard realities of "boredom" and its step-brother "mind-numbing boredom."
Likins then quickly replaced the classical, unbroken lines of the Student Union building with a pit of despair, in which a framework of agony has been constructed. He claims it will be finished by next year, but if Likins wants the full impact of this exhibit to kick down the door to the soul, this work will not be finished until 2022 at the earliest!
Now, the centerpiece of the work is examined - the Integrated Learning Center. By its very design, it took hundreds of feet of pristine grassland and unbroken walkway and turned it into a concrete pit that DantŽ would have gazed upon and gone mad.
Surrounding the pit is a steel fence, meant to show that life will never allow those with a free spirit to go where they want, forcing them instead to be trapped forever behind cages of steel.
The purpose of the ILC is thus twofold. One, the mere appearance of the pit breaks the human spirit, smashing it against the wall like so many Hummel figurines. Two, the pit blocks all easy passage to the most vital of University Canvas buildings, such as the Main Library, the Modern Languages building and the Campus Health Center (a.k.a. "Free Condomania"), thus showing through art the cruel life that awaits all of us.
There are, of course, minor touches to this masterwork that has set up this University Canvas as the dystopia of learning that Likins constructed it to be. Call it "garnish," such as the purposeful destruction of all parking areas, the endless maddening sounds of construction and the complete lack of any effort whatsoever to compensate students for their loss.
Many educated people will weep at the brilliance of the University Canvas when it is complete, that is, when all of the old is torn down and replaced with construction.
Yet still many more unenlightened souls are showing disgust at the present state of the artistic work. They complain about the hardships the art brings to their petty lives, they pound their fists into their hands as they look in Likins' general direction and still others write biting satire in the Wildcat veiled in the guise of artistic praise.
These people should be taken for the morons that they truly are. Let the enlightened ignore them and bask in the glory that is Likins' beautiful work of complete destruction.
