Sharing is Caring

Today, I would like to share a few links to things I’ve been reading today.

A quick glance at Google reminds us that today is the 126th birthday of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, an architect whose influence, it turns out, was unavoidable in what I saw every day in the classroom buildings from my days at Penn State. Seeing the Google doodle this morning instantly reminded me of many buildings on PSU’s campus, particularly those of the engineering classes like the Hammond Building, located near the Daily Collegian, where I wrote. In some Pavlovian way, just seeing the building in the doodle instantly put me in a writing mood.

I know next to nothing about architecture, so I had to read a little to confirm my suspicion that this is the architect who had been the influence for all those campus buildings. During my surfing, I found a blog post from another Penn State alum writing about the same experience today, except he seems to have been a student of architecture or engineering, and has a completely different perspective than I on the architect and his influence on the those Penn State edifices.

Mies is often associated with the aphorism "less is more," which brings me to another piece of writing I’d like to share today, the poem by Robert Browning, “Andrea del Sarto,” which was, interestingly enough, penned in the same year as Penn State was founded, 1855. Read the poem here.

Mies is also often associated with the idiom, "God is in the details," which was attributed to his architectural style in his 1969 NY Times obituary.

An example that represents the idea that whatever one does should be done thoroughly, with great attention to detail, is the music of Phish. I’ve been reading the band’s biography, written by Parke Puterbaugh, this week, and his Rolling Stone article from 1997 is a great read about four musicians who are passionate about the details. If you can get your hands on the February 20, 1997, issue, check it out. It is not available online unless you are a Rolling Stone subscriber, but excerpts from Puterbaugh's Phish: The Biography can be found here.

Finally, in honor of the opening weekend of The Hunger Games movie, with its domestic box office making it the third-highest opening weekend of all time, here is a blog from Edmodo that discusses and links to a few sites about teaching with The Hunger Games that teachers have been most frequently sharing on Edmodo.

Happy reading! May the architecture, music, and odds be ever in your favor.