Visitors and Eggheads

This entry is another collaborative post on the Ecotone Wiki: “How Visitors Affect Your View of Place.” See other posts on this topic here.

Coming back from a trip to the coast this evening to see family we were discussing how visiting a foreign country is a great way to learn to see afresh, since everything is so different. It makes you look at where you live in a different way.

Davis, California is not a tourist destination. There are no Roman ruins, there is no spa, no beach; the the most ancient buildings are just over 100 years old; there isn’t even any wine made here other than for the purposes of study. But there is a large, world-class university, and in fact it is this that accounts for the trips made by most visitors, either directly or indirectly. (The recent runaway success of the University Retirement Community, providing different levels of care for seniors, is almost certainly attributable to its proximity to the campus. These people didn’t move here for the climate.)

Pica’s window at work looks out onto one of the egghead sculptures by Robert Arneson. It is actually the most photographed one in the series; entitled “Eye on Mrak: Fatal Laff,” it is a Janus-faced piece where the second face, pictured at left, is upside-down and laughing. At least three different people pose next to this head every day; sometimes the number is far higher. (Mrak Hall is the main administration building on campus.)

The egghead is not a sight we bother to show our visitors. Rather, we make sure our visitors see the significant landmarks in our daily round: the Davis Food Co-op, the Davis Farmers Market if they’re here on the right day of the week, and of course the cows right next to the main road loop through campus. Architecturally inclined visitors get to see the 1970s era ecotopian Village Homes, the contemporary McMansion wasteland known as Mace Ranch, and the monolithic edifice the Mondavi Center. Those who stay a little longer with some interest in birds get to see the California Raptor Center.

If Numenius were a visitor, not a resident, there is one place not mentioned above that he’d be sure to head to—Shields Library. If the university is at the heart of this town, the main campus library is surely the heart of any university. How better to get a sense of what the town has to offer?